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so similarly marked as to assure me that no difference
really existed. You say they are much marked with
red and purple. A var. of femur. rubrum has the thorax above
such a bright deep cherry red, that I have tried hard to
persuade myself it was a distinct species.. This color is not
evanescent, like the love dress in birds. I once put some of
these red ones under a bell glass, in a grass plat, & some of
them remained alive there till after snow fell - their color
remaining of as bright a hue as in summer. But, as other
individuals occur of every variety of shade between these &
the ordinary dirty olive hue, I cannot believe them to be distinct.

You allude to the Pembina grasshopper being so much more
migratory than femur. rubrum. We know the fem. r. does sometimes
here in N.Y. and N. Eng. gather into swarms and take to flight,
appearing like a cloud in the sky, and eating every particle of
vegetation on the spot where the swarm happens to alight. Then
again, the real migratory locust of the east would not be suspected
to be migratory at all, from the habits it shows in Southern France
and Northern Italy. Thus this habit fails to give us any authentic
indication of a specific difference. In fine, unless on a re-exam-
ination I am more successful in finding some character to clearly
indicate it as distinct, I shall be obliged to regard this as