386 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



to Vegetation," is here introduced, with the object of 

 describing to the general reader the true character of 

 this destroyer. 



The abundant and prolific jumping orthopterous insects 

 included by Linngeus in his great genus Gryllus, and 

 known by the English names of crickets, grasshoppers, and 

 locusts, may thus be distinguished from one another * : — 



u 1. Crickets (Achetadae) ; wing covers, horizontal ; antennae, long and 

 tapering ; two tapering, downy bristles at the end of the body, between 

 which, in most of the females there is a long spear-pointed piercer. 



" 2. Grasshoppers (Gryllidse) ; wing covers, sloping ; antennas, long and 

 tapering; feet, with four joints; end of the body in the females provided 

 with a projecting sword or sabre-shaped piercer. 



" 3. Locusts (Locustadae) ; wing covers, roofed ; antennas, rather short and 

 in general not tapering to the end ; feet, with three joints ; females, without 

 a projecting piercer. 



" The various insects included under the name of 

 locusts nearly all agree in having their wing-covers rather 

 long and narrow, and placed obliquely along the sides of 

 the body, meeting and even overlapping for a short 

 distance at their upper edges, which together form a ridge 

 on the back like a sloping roof. Their antennae are much 

 shorter than those of most grasshoppers, and do not taper 

 towards the end, but are nearly of equal thickness at both 

 extremities ; their feet have only three joints, but as the 

 under side of the first joint is marked by one or two cross 

 lines, the feet, when seen only from below, seem to be 

 four or five jointed. The females have not a long pro- 

 jecting piercer like the crickets and grasshoppers, but the 

 extremity of the body is provided with four short, wedge- 

 like pieces, placed in pairs above and below, and opening 

 and shutting opposite to each other, thus forming an in- 

 strument like a pair of nippers, only with four short 



* A Treatise on some of the Insects of New England, which are injurious 

 to vegetation, by Thaddeus William Harris, M.D., Boston, 1852. 



