ORTHOPTERA OF NOVA SCOTIA. — PIERS. 349 



together by specialists, I have decided, tentatively at least 

 and as a matter of convenience, to place our form under the 

 old name Grijllus pennsylvanicus neglectus of Scudder, for 

 with that variant or subva iant it se3ms m js'ly to agree. 

 No doubt the variants intergrade in various parts of America, 

 and therefore their characters are of slight real classificatory 

 value. My belief that our form is nearest Scudder's neglectus 

 is perhaps a matter of very unnecessary detail, and quite 

 open to criticism at the present time when neglectus, once 

 held to be a separate species, has become to most students 

 a mere transitory phase of pennsylvanicus, and when, as 

 we have noted on page 338, even all the American native 

 forms of Gnjllus have been by the two well-known authciities, 

 Rehn and Hebard, very recently thrown together under one 

 specific name, assimilis of Fabricius, those writers main- 

 taining that all forms and colour-phases intergrade over 

 wide areas. Still in a purely local paper like this, it is per- 

 haps better for the present to endeavour to draw minor or 

 closer distinctions, and so risk the charge of being over-exact; 

 leaving to systematists with a much wider vision and material 

 from extensive geographic areas, the task of finally assigning 

 the form where it properly belongs, an undertaking which 

 will probably be the easier for them because of such initial 

 detailed treatment. 



I may say that by neglectus I understand a rather small- 

 sized, distinctly short-winged variety of the complex penn- 

 sylvanicus, in which the wing-covers of the female cover on 

 an average only about two-thirds, or a trifle less or more, of 

 the abdomen, and in which the ovipositor averages about 

 14 mm. or a little less in length and also averages less than 

 half as long again as the hind femur. In the other short- 

 winged or typical pennsylvanicus the wing-covers are con- 

 siderably longer, reaching nearly to the end of the abdomen 

 in the female. 



Scudder's original description of G. neglectus (Boston 



