92 



AN ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



Tettix. 



thorax very much developed and extended backward so as to 

 cover a large part or even all of the abdomen. They frequent 

 banks of streams and moist places, resembling in color 

 Fig. 62. dead leaves or muddy flats where they often occur, 



and they are powerful leapers. Many of the species 

 are found as adults early in spring, while I have found 

 others in September. None of them are known to be 

 injurious. 



REMEDIES. 



The question of remedies against the "locust," or 

 short-horned grasshopper, is an important one, not 

 always easy of solution. As the country is brought 

 into more complete cultivation the ' ' grasshopper' ' pest will natu- 

 rally decrease, injury from the migrating forms only remaining to 

 be dreaded. 



In the general life history it was said that a large proportion 

 of the eggs are laid in fall, remaining unhatched during the 

 winter. The young nymph, or larva, is a feeble insect, able to 

 dig to the surface through the way opened by the pod, or through 

 loose soil, but scarcely otherwise. Fall-plowing the infested land 

 is therefore a most effective remedy. If the pods are deeply cov- 

 ered, the young die attempting to get to the surface ; if lightly 

 covered or exposed, their natural enemies find them easily ; and 

 when the pods are broken, rain and sunshine induce decay or 

 disease, and the eggs never hatch. Where grasshoppers other 

 than the migratory forms are troublesome, systematic fall-plowing 

 will effect a prompt reduction in their numbers. Special or lim- 

 ited localities, like cranberry bogs, are sometimes infested, and in 

 such cases turkeys are effective. They prefer grasshoppers to 

 almost any other food, and, if allowed to run where such abound, 

 will eat nothing else. In some cases the arsenites may be used 

 to protect crops which are easily sprayed, and occasionally 

 ' ' driving' ' will answer for the fledged insects. 



Larval forms in grass or short vegetation can be collected in 

 large pans or "hopper-dozers," drawn by men or horses, and 

 coated with coal-tar, crude petroleum, or other sticky substance, 

 and of all these the crude petroleum is to be preferred. 



As against the migratory forms in their permanent breeding 

 grounds, I have no suggestion to make here. The subject has 



