292 ORTHOPrERA OF NOVA SCOTIA. — PIERS. 



ant. In some years favourable for its rapid multiplication, 

 it has been excessively numerous in certain localities, as 

 for example the notable onslaught in vast hordes which it 

 made on Sable Island, N. S., from 1891 to 1896. Besides 

 my own specimens from Sable Island and about Halifax, 

 atlanis has been collected in Inverness, Victoria, Pictou, 

 Cumberland, Colchester, Hants, Annapolis, Digby, Yarmouth 

 and Queens Counties, by C. B. Gooderham, W, H. White- 

 head, E. C. Allen and others. It thus occurs throughout 

 the entire province. In Prince Edward Island Mr. Long ob- 

 tained 39 specimens from ten localities although he only 

 reports six specimens of M. femur-ruhrum, which would lead 

 one to think it is the more numerous species in that province. 

 This species {atlanis) prefers open grassland in relatively 

 dry situations, and is therefore usually most frequently met 

 Oil impoverished upland localities (such for example as 

 Camp Hill at Halifax), and it occurs in' lesser numbers in 

 the bottoms where 'the conditions permit the formation of 

 dry grasslands. I have, however, taken it in such a wet 

 boggy lo3ality as the West Marsh, Lawrencetown, Hx. Co., 

 on 28 Oct., 1897. Not unfrequently it is found in company 

 with M. femur-ruhrum. Sapt. R. J. Boutillier states that 

 the young of atlanis were observed on Sable Island, N. S., 

 by 28 May, 1893, and that they were a month later than 

 in 1895; but I have never noted them so very early about 

 Halifax. Adults are met with from about the first part 

 of July in some localities, to the latter part of October. The 

 earliest noted at Truro were taken on 30 June and 9 July, 

 1914; and the latest occurrence, at Lawrencetown, Hx. Co., 

 was on 26 Oct., 1807, a lovely fine day. So far as known, 

 it and M. femur-rubrum are found as adults earlier than any 

 other species of our native Orthoptora exclusive of the hiber- 

 nating Grouse Locusts {Acrydiinm). 



M. atlanis is an insect of most destructive possibilites 

 and should be very closely watched, for if it becomes exceed- 



