336 NATURE SKETCHES IN TEMPERATE AMERICA 



As the egg leaves the ovipositor the latter is gradually with- 

 drawn, while the egg remains in the leaf, retained in place, 

 probably, by a viscid fluid that is exuded with it. As many as 

 five of the eggs are sometimes deposited in one row in the same 

 leaf, but more often they are single." 



From the general shape of the ovipositor of the genus Scud- 

 deria, it is quite probable that all the members lay their eggs 

 between the epidermis of leaves. The plate photographic 

 illustration accompanying this article was taken from a male 

 and female found at Lakeside, Michigan, in the habitat shown 

 in the view of the landscape in another chapter. Its general 

 range includes the United States and southern Canada, east 

 of the Great Plains. 



The slender meadow grasshopper is one of the most interest- 

 ing as well as exquisite forms of this same group of insects. 

 After the second week in July, scarcely a sweep of the net among 

 the tall grasses and other herbage in the damp meadows would 

 fail to disclose some of these artful little locustids, which had 

 hidden behind some plant stem or grass leaf. Yet, withal, it 

 seemed less wild than some of the allied species. The male, 

 shown in the illustration, on page 333, at the top of a 

 goldenrod and on the same plate with the cone-head grass- 

 hoppers, was found by a fence row. Toward the last of 

 July, and later, it often gathered on tall red-top and timothy 

 grasses, as well as on the goldenrod, in association with other 

 locustids and cEcanthids. 



I have also noted, under the title "Before the August 

 Shower," the habits of this species and its song, which is so 

 faint that it is scarcely a,udible a few yards away. It was a 

 common frequenter of the weeds and grasses of our grounds, 

 shown in the photographic view of the "Habitat of the Orthop- 

 tera." This little locust must have some excellent means of 

 escaping from its enemies and perpetuating its kind, for it is 

 widely distributed, being found from British America to Buenos 

 Ayres, South America. 



