46 
THE RED-LEGGED LOCUST. 
{Melanoplus femur-rubrum De G. ). 
This is our commonest North American grasshopper, being found 
practically everywhere. It is one of the smaller species (fig. 48), and 
where it -is not held in subjection by 
numerous natural enemies of various 
kinds it may become a decided nuisance 
in cultivated lands. It was destructive 
to sugar beet in Illinois in 1899. It sel- 
dom exhibits the migratory tendency, 
but sometimes gathers in swarms and 
moves in concert, not, however, rising to great heights, but drifting 
with the wind as do the true migratory species. 
Fig. 43. — Melanoplus femur-r ubrum — na t 
ural size (after Riley). 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST. 
{Melanoplus spretus Thomas). 
This is the most destructive of ail native grasshoppers, and has been 
the cause of greater losses to agriculture in the past thirty years or 
more than perhaps all of the other known species of grasshoppers 
combined. Its range of injuriousness is not limited to the Rocky 
Mountain region, but it 
is more abundant there 
than elsewhere. It is 
illustrated in figures 4A: 
and 15. 
Those who were inter- 
FiG. ^.—Melanoplus spretus: a, a, a, female in different posi- 
tions, ovipositing; b, egg-pod extracted from ground, Avith 
the end broken open; c, a few eggs lying loose on the 
ground; (/, c, show the earth partially removed, to illustrate 
an egg-mass already in place and one being placed; /, shows 
where such a mass has been covered up (after Riley). 
Fig. 45. — Melanoplus spretus: a, a, 
newly hatched nymph; b, full- 
grown nymph; o, pupa, natural 
size (after Riley). 
ested in farming in the TO's in Kansas, Nebraska, and some neighbor- 
ing States have cause to remember the depredations of the Rocky 
Mountain locust. During 18TI-18TT it was directly responsible for 
the loss of ^100,000,000, in addition to an indirect loss by the stoppage 
of business and other enterprises which might have aggregated as 
m.uch more. It was for an investigation of this species that the 
