482 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
even approximated to the tegmina but held apart therefrom, 
diverging from each other at an angle of from 75° to 85°. 
The performance was repeated for several minutes on different 
occasions, as long as I cared to watch, and by both sexes, 
the female taking the initiative and maintaining the move- 
ments longer than the male. No sound was heard unless the 
feet came in contact with vegetation or the box in which the 
insects were confined. What may be the significance of this 
movement and its relation to the stridulatory movements of other 
Locusts remains a subject for investigation. Neither hind femora 
nor tegmina bear rasps, and flight is accompanied by a buzz or 
rustle only, not by a rattle or crackle. Nevertheless, the audi- 
tory tympana at the base of the abdomen are large and probably 
f auction as organs of hearing. Owing to the lack of stridulatory 
habits they appeal less to human interest. However, at least 
two species are ranked as seriously injurious to crops and have 
several times caused severe and widespread damage; another is 
peculiar in being almost purely arboreal in habits, both in feeding 
and in oviposition; two are among the largest species found in the 
country; and several are notable for the great reduction in size 
of the tegmina and wings. Aside from these items, the chief 
point of interest about them lies in their relation to habitat, — 
their distribution, local and general, — one species, indeed, though 
equipped with neither tegmina nor wings inhabits a very wide 
extent of country from the boreal regions of Maine and Canada, 
southward along the cooler Appalachian summits as far as North 
Carolina. 
Eighteen species of this group have been taken in New England, 
all but two of which are native. These are divided among five 
genera. Since the genera are, for the most part, very closely 
related, the key to species is made up independently of generic 
characterization. Our species are easily recognized with the 
exception of the females of Melanoplus, wliich are unquestionably 
the most difficult to discriminate of all our Locusts, owing to 
the variability of every available character. 
