REPORT OF TIIE 8TATE ENTOMOLOGIST 



441 



published in the Annual Report of the Department for the year 1883 

 (pp. 170-180, pi. 2), and as it contains a full discussion of the history, 

 characters, range and life-history, natural enemies of, and remedies 

 (5 pp.) for, the species, it will amply repay perusal, especially by 

 those who may hereafter be called to contend with this voracious 

 insect. 



Our Two Most Injurious Species. 

 Melanoplus femur-rubrum, the red-legged grasshopper, although not 

 known ever to become migratory, from its being the more abundant of 

 the two, is probably chargeable with a greater aggregate amount of 

 injury to gardens, fruit-trees, and crops than the M. atlanis. Both of 

 these species belong to the same genus with the Rocky Mountain 

 locust, and resemble it closely in life-history and habits. The three 

 are so much alike in appearance that a close inspection by an ordinary 

 observer would only show that M. spretus of the West is the better 



fitted for long flight by its considerably longer wings. M. atlanis was 

 confounded with M. femur -rubrum until within less than twenty years 



Fig. 19— The Red-Legged Locust, M. fkmur-rubrum. 



ago; it is hardly separable except by comparison of the last segment 

 of the abdomen. Until lately, and up to the present by some writers, 

 the above three species and their associates have had place in the 

 genus Caloptenus. 



Operations in New York. 

 The present year (1894) has been a favorable one for grasshopper 

 multiplication, from the dry weather that has prevailed over a large 

 extent of the country — in one locality in Illinois "not a drop of 

 rain having fallen in three months." 



It is very unusual that occasion arises for complaints of grasshopper 

 injuries to crops in the State of New York, but this year, in its western 

 counties, they have, for the first time in several years, proved to be a 

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