In following up the very proper plan proposed and partially effected by Mr. Kirby, in the Zoological Journal, of restoring to the primary divisions of the Linnæan genus Gryllus the names which he gave to them, and which have been so confusedly employed by Fabricius and the French entomologists, and of which I have elsewhere given a more complete explanation, it is necessary that the generic name Locusta should be restored to the true migratory locusts composing the genus Acrydium of Latreille, and that a new name (Rutidoderes) should be given to the subgenus Acrydium of Serville, comprising the present and other allied species.
LOCUSTA TARTARICA?
Plate [XLIX]. fig. 2.
Order: Orthoptera. Section: Saltatoria. Family: Locustidæ (Acridites, Serv.)
Genus. Locusta. Gryllus; Sect. Locusta, Linn. Gryllus, Fabr. Acrydium, Latr. (Subgenus: Locusta. Œdipoda, Serville.)
Locusta Tartarica. Thorace subcarinato tripartito; fusco, lineâ dorsali pallidâ; elytris fulvescentibus fusco punctatis, alis hyalino subvirescentibus. (Expans. Alar. 4 unc. 6 lin.)
Syn. Gryllus tartaricus? Linn. Syst. Nat. 1. 2. p. 700. 42. Fabr. Ent. Syst. 2. 53. Serville Revis. Orthopt. p. 92. (Acryd. t.)
Gryllus americanus, Drury, App. vol. 2.
Habitat: Virginia, Antigua, New York, Madras, and Sierra Leone (Drury). "Tartaria et Africa." (Linn.)
Head striped with dark and light brown. Eyes oblong. Thorax dark brown; having a light brown stripe running along it from the front of the head, which, when the wings are closed, is continued along the margin of the tegmina; on the sides it is light brown, and margined beneath with stripes and spots of dark buff. Antennæ thread-like, and about the length of the thorax. Tegmina dark buff-coloured, almost transparent, variegated with stripes and spots of different shapes; those next the shoulders being nearly black, and those toward the extremity more transparent. Wings very thin, and more transparent than the tegmina, being of a greenish hue. Abdomen light brown on the sides; having a small stripe of a paler colour running along it, and on the upper ridge is black. Legs pale brown. Hinder thighs almost square, the outer sides being white and prettily chequered, which, when viewed by a magnifier, seem like scales laid over one another; on the outside of the tibiæ is a round white spot, and over that a long black one. Posterior tibiæ brownish red, with two rows of spines on the hinder sides of a white colour, and tipped with black, consisting of nine in the outer and eleven in the inner row.