MORSE: OllTHOPTERA OF NEW ENGLAND. 323 
green and partly brown or gray; the middle femora of the male 
transversely banded with darker. 
Measurements. 
Body 
and ccrci 
.■Vntcnna 
Ant. fern. Mid. fern. 
Hind foin. 
Ccrci 
Male. . . . 
. . . 62-74 
50-60 
18 -22 13 -16.5 
I'.t.O 
2-3 
Female. . 
. . . 72-90 
40-47 
17.5-21.5 11.5-14.5 
15-17 
1-1.5 nun. 
Probably no native insect when seen for the first time causes 
so much astonishment in the uninformed mind as this, which is 
to all appearances a slender stick or twig incomprehensibly en- 
dowed with life and movement. It is widely distributed over the 
eastern half of the country and inhabits all of the warmer parts 
of New England, yet it is infrequently seen, and then more by 
accident than as a result of purposeful search. It matures late 
in August, and may be found throughout September and well 
into October. New England records are: South Bridgeton, Me. 
(Me. Exp. Sta.); Manchester, N. H. (Fogg); Sudbury^ Vt. 
(Scudder); Belchertown, Berlin, Springfield, summit of Mt. 
Wachusett, and many towns in the vicinity of Boston, Mass., 
and New Haven, Ct. It probably inhabits the whole of the 
latter State. 
It lives by preference in deciduous shrubbery and woodlands, 
but, being somewhat of a wanderer, is often met with in quite 
unexpected places. "It moves very slowly and has a habit of 
remaining motionless and apparently dead, for a considerable 
length of time. On such occasions it usually stretches itself out 
from a twig, with its front legs and antennae extended, and then 
can scarcely be distinguished from a prolongation or branch of 
the twig. Mam^ people who see them thus for the first time and 
afterward w'atch them moving slowly away, can scarcely be 
persuaded that they are not real twigs, gifted in some mysterious 
manner with life and motion. In feeding, they eat the edges of a 
leaf, preferably those of an oak or wild cherry, usually straddling 
it with their legs, and in an hour will devour a piece an inch long 
by a third of an inch wide " (Blatchley). 
Dr. Riley recorded an outbreak in Yates County, New York, in 
1878, in a woodland of fifty acres, which had been attacked two 
and four years previously. A portion of his account follows: 
" By the middle of August the bulk of the pests were going through 
