MORSE: ORTHOPTKHA OF NKW KNCLAND. .365 
Xiphidium fdsciatum Sc'L'dder, lioston Joum. Nat. Hist., vol. 7, p. 451 
(1862).— Smith, Proc. Portland Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 1, p. 145 (18GS); 
Kept. Ct. Bd. Agric. for 1872, p. 358 (1873).— Fehnald, Orth. N. E., p. 24 
(1888).— Walde.v, Bull. Geol. Nat. Hist. Surv. Ct., no. 16, p. 137 (1911). 
This is a slender-bodied and typically lonp;-\vinp;ed species, with 
tegmina nearly always passing the end of the hind thighs and 
usually exceeded slightly by the wings. Cerci green, rather 
slender, the apex but little twisted, in dorsal view rounded, in 
side view flattened on dorsal side, tapering to a point. Ovi- 
positor straight, slender, two-thirds as long as hind femora; green, 
shaded with brown toward tip. 
Color: rather light grass-green, a dark rufous-brown stripe 
from vertex of head to hind margin of pronotum, widening back- 
ward. Sides of face and pronotum and all femora with minute 
brown dots. Tibiae and tarsi, especially the hinder pair, sufifu.sed 
with brown. Dorsum of abdomen with a median solid dark 
brown stripe bordered by a pair of dorso-lateral yellowish or 
whitish stripes which are margined in turn by a pair of more or 
less distinct brown stripes. Abdomen beneath bright green in 
life, yellowing when dried. 
Measurements. 
Total Body Tegmina Hind femora Ovipositor Antenna 
Male 16-17 12-14 10-12 9 -10.5 28-32 
Female 18-21 13-15 13-14 10.5-11.5 6-7 27-32 mm. 
Rarely short-winged examples are found with tegmina but 6 mm. long. 
This graceful little species is our most common Meadow- 
grasshopper and occurs throughout New England. It is a deni- 
zen of the ranker growth in the damper parts of grass-covered 
fields, pastures, and meadows and the tangles of herbage at their 
edges, where it is often exceedingly abundant locally, both inland 
and at the margins of the coastwise salt-marshes. It takes wing 
readily w'hen alarmed, but its flight is seldom more than a yard 
or two in length. Adults appear about the middle of July and 
are found during the remainder of the season. 
Allard says that it is a persistent singer by day and night but 
its stridulation is among the faintest known to him, the notes of 
captive individuals even in the quiet of a room being barely 
audible seven or eight feet away. The song "invariably begins 
