THE INSECT WORLD. 



89 



and it differs from the preceding in having the breast between the 

 anterior legs produced into an obvious tubercle or pointed pro- 

 cess. The prothorax is usually smooth and quite even, rarely 

 ridged or crested or even angulated, and the hind wings are not 

 often contrastingly colored. 



The typical genus Acriditcm of older authors contained the 

 long-winged forms, which, hatching in great numbers in their 

 natural haunts, sometimes find food insufficient, and are seized 

 with a migratory mania that impels them to rise, by what seems 

 common consent, and fly to fresh fields and pastures new. Such 

 swarms may number uncounted millions of specimens, and they 

 leave a wake of devastation which only those who have seen can 

 appreciate. 



The species described in biblical history is the Schistocerca 

 peregriiium, or true migratory locust, and is strongly resembled, 

 except in size, by the Schistocerca americana of the Eastern 

 United States, which is common and sometimes destructive in the 

 South, but becomes more rare northwardly, until in Central New 

 Jersey it is but occasionally seen. In all the species oi Acridmm 

 the wings are longer than the abdomen, and in the males the tip 

 of the abdomen is not swollen. The sexes in these insects are 

 easily distinguished, because the female abdomen terminates in 

 four pointed, horny valves, or pieces, no trace of which is found 

 in the males. 



Perhaps this is a convenient place to describe the life history 

 of grasshoppers, or AcridiidcB^ in general. The eggs are most 

 frequently laid in the ground, though sometimes in partly de- 

 cayed wood, the horny valves already mentioned serving to 

 make the holes. The species that oviposit in the ground select 

 a moderately hard or compact soil where obtainable, not too 

 densely covered with vegetation, and then force the abdomen 

 into it as deeply as possible. When this is accomplished the 

 eggs are laid, each coated with a gummy secretion which causes 

 it to adhere to its neighbor and to form a pod, extending almost 

 to the surface. The hole is then closed, and becomes indis- 

 tinguishable except on close examination. In this state they 

 remain through the winter, the young hatching during the fol- 

 lowing spring or early summer. The term nymph rather than 

 larva is employed for these young, unfledged grasshoppers, and 



