Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 
i5 
timber line. Others are found only in the shade of deep forests, 
while vast numbers of species are at home under the blaze of a 
desert sun. In consequence regions as diverse as below sea-level 
in Death Valley, and the summit of Mount Whitney at 14,500 feet 
in the Sierras, the lowest and highest points within the United 
States, have required examination in our work. In the field season 
of 1919 a most striking new species of grasshopper was found in 
the former locality, and an even more remarkable new genus and 
species of katy-did was secured on the latter summit. 
Leaving Philadelphia July 31, 1921, the writer spent the first 
twenty days of the trip working alone, Mr. Hebard joining him at 
Amarillo, Texas, on August 20. The first stop was made at Syra- 
cuse in the Great Plains region of western Kansas, where a sandhill 
area south of the Arkansas River was examined. Raton, New 
Mexico, was the next work center and there a study of conditions on 
the Raton and Johnson Mesas, as well as the adjacent plains to 
the south, occupied the time. Remnants of a very old lava sheet, 
these and similar mesas, or table-topped ranges, project to the 
east of the Rockies for many miles, forming a decided barrier to 
north and south travel. Thanks to the erosion-resisting capping 
of hard volcanic material, which in much of this region overlays 
one of the most important coal deposits in the Western States, 
the summits of several of these mesas are very level and plains-like. 
These areas are splendid pasture land, or in large part cultivated, 
receiving more rain in summer and snow in winter than the lower 
plains. The plains to the southeast and south of Raton are domin- 
ated by isolated volcanic peaks, such as Mt. Capulin and Eagle 
Tail Peak, reminders of the days, far more recent than those of 
the crusting of the Raton Mesa, when these regions were in the 
throes of volcanic activity. 
A brief stop at Wagon Mound, New Mexico, gave an opportunity 
to study the grasshopper fauna of several volcanic cones nearby, 
one of these hills from its fancied shape having supplied the early 
Anglo-Saxon pioneers with the name now applied to the town. In 
quest of additional information upon certain species which had been 
secured there in previous field work, several days were spent in 
the vicinity of Albuquerque, working in the flood-plain of the Rio 
Grande, on the bench toward the Sandia Mountains, and in an 
extensive sand area west of the river. A brief side trip to Holbrook. 
