184 Mr. B. P. Uvarov— ^ Revision of 



Orthacanthacris may be found in Kirby's Catalogue (iii. 

 p. 444), he having included in it as many as eleven species 

 belonging to three genera, according to our present views. 

 Later on, in 1914 (Fauna Brit. India, Acrid, p. 224), he gave 

 his own extremely vague description of the genus Ortha- 

 canthacris, which does not even fit the genotype^ O. humili- 

 crus ; it is obvious that his idea of the genus originated not 

 from the study of the genotype, but merely from the name 

 of the genus, as he simply included in it all species of 

 " Acridium " with the prosternal spine straight. 



More recently, three more genera, all ratlier aberrant 

 from the general type, have been described, viz., Phyxacra, 

 Karny (1907), Congoa^ Bolivar (1911), and Loiteria^ Sjostedt, 

 but no attempt has ever been made to clear up the generic 

 classification of the group. C. Wiliemse, who has recently 

 (1921) tabulated the Oriental and (partly) Australian genera 

 of the subfamily Catantopinse (Zoolog. Meded. vi. 1, p. 15), 

 followed Kirby in the conception of the two genera 

 Cyrtacanihacris and Orthacanthacris. Prof. Sjostedt, in his 

 jnst-puldished monograph of the Australian Acrididae 

 (K. Sven. Vet.-Akad. Handl. Ixii. No. 3, 1921), goes back to 

 the adoption of a single genus, Acridium (besides Loiteria, 

 which is a very aberrant insect), as accepted by Serville, 

 Stal, etc. ; his rensons for this have been discussed above "^j 

 and there is no need of further criticism. 



I have deliberately omitted in the foregoing outline of the 

 history of the group to mention the comparatively recent 

 revision of the genus ^'Acridium, Serville," by Finot (Ann. 

 Soc. Ent. France, Ixxvi. 1907, pp. 247-354), as it deserves 

 a special discussion, being regarded as a standard work by 

 all the modern orthopterists who use it for the identifi- 

 cation of species. It has been, however, greatly over- 

 estimated, and its chief fault is that the author lacked not 

 only critical judgment, but even the correct knowledge and 

 appreciation of characters, as his classification of the species of 

 the genus ^^ Acridium^' (in which he included indiscriminately 

 all insects described under this name by old writers) is based 

 exclusively on colour-characters without any reference to 



* Prof. Sjostedt objects also to alterations in the family-names of 

 certain groups of Orthoptera, and especially to transferring- the name 

 Locustidfie from long-horned grasshoppers to the short-horned ones, 

 wliicli have been called Acridiidse ; this was a mistake on the part of 

 Kii-by, who correctly removed Zoc?/5/'«from the long-horned grasshoppers, 

 Tettigoniidte, but quite unnecessarily altered the name Acridiidae into 

 Locustidaj, whereas the family must be called Acrididae after Acrida, L. 



