39 
Aside from these grasses, only a few instances are on record of its hav. 
nig injured cultivated crops, and these arc only when the special food* 
plants had given out. Whether or not this same habit will continue. 
(should the locust become habitually a pest, can not be foretold. 
The habit of gathering or massing upon bared places, along wit: 
clumsy nature, renders it an easy enemy to figh't with the '. 
pans, etc. Hence.it can be easily controlled in future when desired. 
Fig. 21. — Dissosteira obliterate: a. male — natural size: 
b. female anal characters — enlarged (original). 
THE PALE- WINGED LOCUS!*. 
Dissosteira obliterate Tims'. 
Last year (1890) while investigating' the Pellucid -winged Lo< 
plague in central Idaho, a number of specimens ofa large ample- wii 
species were observed among the pelludd-a in various places on the^ 
Shoshone side of the low mountain range lying between the Snake 
River Plain and the Camas Prairie. Upon capturing specimens of 
this locust it was found to 
be the insect which Prof. 
Cyius Thomas described as 
tEdipotla obliterata. Later 
in the course of that expe- 
dition this same locust was 
met with in large numbers 
in the foothills lying to the 
south of Boise City. In that 
particular locality this, with two other species of locusts, had al: 
entirely denuded the ground of its covering of grass vegetation. The 
other,species were the Melanoplus foedus and Pezotettix enigma. 
Dis808teira obliterata also occurs in Oregon. Nevada, and California. 
in all of which States it is quite plentiful over limited areas. It is a very 
variable insect as far as color goes, and has been described under an- 
other name by M. Henri Saussure in his Prodromus GEdipodioruin. 
This name is Dissosteira spurcata. 
Its habits, whih- not positively known, are supposed to be very simi- 
lar to those of Dissosteira longipennis. It is a native of the semi-arid 
•us of the States where found, and frequents rather elevated, grav- 
elly, or sandy hillsides where the vegetation is composed of various 
Short grasses which thinly clothe the surface. When disturbed it i 
from the ground with apparent ease and flits along on its ample wings 
to a considerable distance before realighting. 
The following description will enable one t<> recognize it: 
Mali and Female.— Length to tip of tegiina, 1.50; to tip of abdomen, 1.10 to 
inches. Pale reddish-brown or dull yellowish, tinged with rufous, with irreg 
erse hands of dark fuscous spots. 
Occiput not prominent. Vertex broad, moderately dedexed margins, with sharp 
carina? forming a distinct suhquadrate, median foveola, which is divided into 
equal sections by a distinct longitudinal median carina that extends back 
