STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
489 
GIGANTIC LOCUSTS. 
tips. As the insect presented me by Lieut. P. is remarkable for the length of 
its antennal, which surpass those of any species which I find described by 
authors, I here give a short account of it. 
The Long-horned caty-did, Acanthodis macrocerus, has antennae four 
times the length of its body and measuring eight inches or more in length. It 
is live inches in width and two in length, and is of a pale dull yellow color 
The head is smooth and shining, with a projecting tubercle between th 
antennae, which is hollowed on its upper side like the concavity of the bowl 
of a spoon, and from this hollow a wavy impressed line extends back to the 
base of the head. An elevated ridge margining the sockets ot the antennae has 
an impressed furrow on its outer side, in which on the under side are two black 
dots. The antennae are tawny yellow, towards their tips black, their basal 
joint thick, cylindric, pale greenish yellow, with an oblique brown stripe on 
its under side. The thorax is rough from irregular elevated warts and ridges, 
and is crossed by two transverse grooves, in which and in the other indenta¬ 
tions arc several black dots and irregular spots. The wing covers are pale 
olive green, 2.40 long and 0.00 broad, widest in the middle and rounded at 
their tips, with a clear glassy spot on the inner base of each. The wings are 
smoky blackish with pale dull yellow veins and black vcinlets and a very 
narrow pale hind border, and four rows of cells upon their outer margin are 
colorless and transparent but not clear and glassy. The four forward thighs 
have three rows of small brown spots towards their tips, the row upon their 
fore sides being longest, and on their under sides is a row of five small spines. 
The shanks have two rows of similar spines, of which there are about ten in 
the forward row and eight in the hind one. The hind thighs have a row of 
ten spines on their under side, and their shanks have on their outer sides two 
rows of spines, about fourteen in the inner and one less in the outer row, and 
on their inner sides two rows, the outer with thirteen and the inner with ten 
spines, all these spines being tipped with black. The individual is a male and 
was preserved in diluted alcohol. 
The gigantic locusts of tropical America, of which as already stated there aro 
four distinct species, are so similar to each other in size and in several of their 
most prominent and peculiar marks, that three of them were for a long time con¬ 
founded together and were supposed to be but one or two species. Now that 
we come to possess a number of specimens taken together at one locality and 
see how alike these all are in their colors and other characters, it is evident that 
these insects arc not subject to any material variations, and that the species 
into which they have been separated are well founded and are clearly distinct. 
They all pertain to the genus to which authors generally have given the name 
Acrydium, this genus differing from that to which the Migratory locust and 
most of our common grasshoppers in this country pertain, and to which the 
name Locusta most appropriately belongs, in having a spine or teat-like pro¬ 
cess hanging downwards in the middle of the breast between the haunches of 
the anterior pair of legs. These large species form a distinct group or section 
of that genus, differing from all the other species in having the thorax rough, 
with its anterior part elevated in the middle into a sharp-edged keel or crest 
which is cut across by three deep transverse furrows, dividing this crest into 
four lobes, as will be seen by a reference to the figures herewith presented, and 
the anterior end of this crest jutting forward in a point which projects over 
the base of the head. Their hind thighs also have two rows of white spots on 
their outer face, those of the upper row being commonly round and the others 
broad oval. In addition to this, three of these species further agree in having 
