238 OKTHOPTERA OF NOVA SCOTIA. — PIERS. 



Common names. — For insects which are so abundant, so 

 much in evidence about cultivated districts, and so detri- 

 mental to agriculture, it is very remarkable that.hardh' 

 any species has a distinctive popular name applied to it 

 by ordinary people. The English names assigned to many 

 of the species in works on the Orthoptera, are almost invariably 

 mere appropriate "book-names", which it is hoped will be 

 adopted by readers and so gradually become current. •This, 

 however, has not yet taken place. Ordinary people in 

 Nova Scotia distinguish, of course, the two species of Cock- 

 roach, and speak in very general terms of "grasshoppers" 

 and "crickets", and country children occasionally call a 

 locust or grasshopper a "molasses bug", because of the 

 brownish salivary fluid it ejects from the mouth 'when 

 handled, and this name perhaps more specially applies to 

 the familiar Melanoplus hivittatus. The only true local 

 name, however, which I have heard specifically applied to 

 our many native species, is the very appropriate one of 

 "Cracker", or less often "Snapper", for the familiar roadside 

 species, Circotettix verruculatus; the first-mentioned name 

 being pretty general among country people throughout the 

 province, and one well worthy of general adoption. 



Remarks on the present list. — My previous annotated list 

 of fourteen species, published in 1896, was made up solely 

 of such forms as I had myself collected, almost entirely 

 about Halifax, in the seasons of 1895 and 1896. At that 

 time Francis Walker's unreliable lists of 1869-72 (see biblio- 

 graphy) were the only other existing contributions to a 

 knowledge of our local Orthoptera, and they were of such 

 a character that it was considered advisable to disregard 

 them. In the present paper I have revised the nomenclature 

 so as to bring it up to date, have made full use of all available 

 sources of information, including C. B. Gooderham's valuable 

 notes from the western part of the province, and have incor- 

 porated many additional observations of my own. Subspeci- 



