LIBRARY

ORTHOPTERA 97
using their front legs and mouth parts as aids in oviposition. Many other
species of broad-winged and narrow-winged katydids occur in nearly every
locality.
In the Old World the beautiful large green katydid, Phasgonura viridissima
(Linmeus), is well known in Europe, norlhern Africa, and western Asia.
Among the less conspicuous and usually wingless or brachypterous groundinhabiting
forms, perhaps the most famous is the western, Great Plains, or
,
s'lridulotory
organ
o
slriclulalory
organ
CU2.
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CUI
FIG. 38. Stridulatory scrapers or files on the bases of the tegmina of male katydids and
crickets. A, a short-winged katydid or carinated shieldbearer, Neduba carinata Walker;
B, fork-tailed katydid, Scudderiajurcata Brunner; C, the snowy tree cricket, CEcanthus niveus
(De Geer); D, the common black field and house cricket, Gryllus assimilis (Fab.).
Mormon cricket, Anabrus simplex Haldeman, a large wingless dark-brown or
black species measuring from 35-45 mm. in length. It often swarms in the
Great Basin region of the United States, where it has been responsible for extensive
damage to cultivated, forage, and grain crops and to natural pasturage.
A sally of sea gulls, which checked such an outbreak at Salt Lake City, Utah,
in the pioneer days of that settlement, was responsible for the erection of the