GRASSHOPPER. A popular term applied to certain orthopterous insects of the families Acri diidm and Locustiche. The English (including the English colonists) call the Acridlicke 'locusts, and the Locustithe 'grasshoppers. • Americans use the term grasshopper for both, the Acridiidm including the Ell ort orned grasshoppers, and the Locustithe the long-horned grasshoppers. The common grasshoppers of the fields, which are rather stout-bodied, with large hind thighs and strong, powers of flight, belong to the Acridiidtc. They are frequently very destructive to crops; the Rocky Mountain grasshopper (Melanoplus spretus) damaged the grain crops of Colorado, Nebraska, and neighboring States in the years 1874 to 1876 to an extent of hundreds of mil lions of dollars, and reduced thousands of fam ilies almost to starvation. Allied species have done similar damage in the Argentine Republic, in South Africa, and in Algeria in recent years, and in Southeastern Europe in former times. The best remedial measures in use at present consist in late fall plowing, to break up the egg-clus ters; in dragging specially constructed coal-oil pans through the fields to collect the young grass hoppers; and in poisoning the insects by means of a bait consisting of moistened bran and ar senic.
The commonest species in the Eastern United States is the red-legged grasshopper (Melanoplus brum), which quite closely resembles the destructive Western species, but which has shorter wings. Its eggs are laid in the autumn in a compact pod beneath the surface of the ground, and the young, are hatched in the spring, molt four or five times, and reach the full grown winged condition in late July or August. Some of the eggs in the North may hatch in the autumn, showing a tendency toward a second generation, which probably develops in the south ern part of the range of this insect. The red
legged grasshopper sometimes occurs in such great numbers as to seriously damage pasture lands in the restricted localities. See LOCUST.
The long-horned grasshoppers (family Locusti dm) include those slender green forms with long antenna: called the 'meadow grasshoppers,' and also the interesting group ordinarily called katy dids (q.v.), as well as the dark-colored wingless forms found under stones and in the woods and in caves and which are known as the 'cricket like' grasshoppers, or 'cave crickets.' Another group belonging to this family contains certain hard-bodied insects of strange appearance, known as the 'shield-backed' grasshoppers, 'Western crickets,' or 'sand crickets.' One of the latter, belonging to the genus Stenopelmatus, is in the West supposed to be poisonous, although as a matter of fact it is perfectly harmless.
Fossil grasshoppers of the family Acridiidn are known in fragmentary condition from rocks of as early age as the Lias of Switzerland and the Mite of England, and members of the family Locustidm have been found sparingly in the Ju rassic limestones of Solenhofen, Bavaria. Several species of each family are• known from the Ter tiary rocks of North America and Europe, but none of either have been found in the amber. Nearly all the more important subdivisions of the two families mentioned are included among the Tertiary fossils. See ORTHOPTERA.
Consult: P'irst Report United States Entomo logical Commission (Washington, 1877) ; Hyatt and Arms. Insecta (Boston, 1890) ; Scudder, Guide to the Genera and Classification of the North American Orthoptera (Cambridge, 1897) ; Howard, The Insect Book (New York, 1901).