THE GRASSHOPPERS. 
155 
sometimes with a tino-e of o:reen, and the wine's are rather 
o O ^ o 
longer than the covers. Some of these insects have been 
sent to me by a gentleman who found them piercing and 
laying eggs in the branches of a peach-tree. Another cor¬ 
respondent, who is interested in the tobacco culture in Con¬ 
necticut, informed me that they injured the plant by eating 
holes in the leaves. 
2. Grasshoppers. ( G-ryllidce,') 
Grasshoppers, properly so called, as before stated, are those 
jumping orthopterous insects which have four joints to all 
their feet, long bristle-formed antennae, and in which the 
females are provided with a piercer, flattened at the sides, 
and somewhat resembling a sword or cimeter in shape. The 
wing-covers slope downwards at the sides of the body, and 
overlap only a little on the top of the back near the thorax. 
This overlapping portion, which forms a long triangle, is 
traversed, in the males, by strong projecting veins, between 
which, in many of them, are membranous spaces as transpar¬ 
ent as glass. The sounds emitted by the males, and varying 
according to the species, are produced by the friction of these 
overlapping portions together. 
In ]\lassachusetts there is one kind of grasshopper which 
forms a remarkable exception to the other native insects of 
this family; and, as it does not seem to have been named 
or described by any author, although by no means an un¬ 
common insect, it may receive a passing notice here. It is 
found only under stones and rubbish in woods, has a short 
thick hodv, and remarkably stout hind thighs, like a cricket, 
but is entirely destitute of wing-covers and wings, even when 
arrived at maturity. It belongs to M. Serville’s genus Plia- 
langopds^ and I propose to call it Fhalangopsis maculata,* 
* Gryllus maculntns, Harris. Catalogue of the Insects of Massachusetts.^ 
[5 According to the authority of Erichson, it was previously described with 
the name Phalangopsis lapidicola, Burm. — Uiiler.] 
