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EXPLANATION TO PLATE I.

Country in which the species is not indigenous ;
which it visits at irregular intervals ; in which it

is most disastrous ; and which it vacates within a year.

yy Area more often visitcd ; in which the species holds
its own longer, but which it generally forsakes in the
course of time.

Region where the species comes to perfection ; in

which it permanently breeds ; and from which come
the disastrous swarms that sweep over the first mentioned

region.

G Area west of the mountains where the species also,
in all probability, breeds permanently ; from_which
it:sometimes pushes to the east of the mountain range ;

and from which the California swarms probably come.

OO = GS 2)

MmocUST PLAGUE

won

IN THE
UNITED STATES:

BEING MORE PARTICULARLY A TREATISE ON THE

Hocky Blountain Locust
GRASSHOPPER,

AS IT OCCURS: EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS,

WITH

Practical Recommendations for its Destruction.

BY

Cuartes Vi Riv, M.A., Px. D.,

“STATE ENTOMOLOGIST OF MISSOURI 3} CHIEF OF THE U. S. ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION .

LECTURER ON ENTOMOLOGY IN VARIOUS COLLEGES;
AUTHOR OF ‘* POTATO PESTS,’’ ETC.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by
CHARLES VY. RILEY,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE

BOAPREU MGI ne eric late ay Cia Sys, Gk Maat ee i

“1 PICT ODIO ONE ye OT ee ©
CHAPTER I.

[SHARACTERS OF THE SPECIES. . .'. ... . ..18

Classificatory position of the Rocky Mountain Locust, 13. —
How it differs from other species, 14.—Easily confounded
with the common Red-legged Locust, 14.—Detailed descrip-
tions of both, 15.—Its still closer resemblance to the A tlan-
tic Migratory Locust, 22.—Characters of this last, 22.—Spe-
cies vs. variety and race, 23.—Comparisons of these three
closely-allied species in their early stages, 26—A green
variety of the Rocky Mountain Locust not infrequent, 27.—
Purely an American insect, 23.

CHAPTER II.
BME ONOMOGTOAL ELISTORXN....00 sa 3s 6 wwe he eo ey 29

The Locust plague in the ‘‘Old World,” 29.—Extent of its
injuries, 30.—Migratory species in Europe, Asia and
Africa, 30.—The ravages of the locust in America, 31.—Its
earliest visitations, 31.—Injuries on the Pacific Coast, 32.—
Injuries east of the Rocky Mountains, 33.—Invasions of
1818-19, 33.—Of 1845-49, 34.—Of 1855, 34.—Of 1856, 35.—
Of 1857-67, 35, 36.—Of 1866, 36.—Damage the following
year, 37.—The invasion of 1873, 38.—That of 1874, 39.—
Why so disastrous, 41.—General outlook in the spring of
1875, 42.—Severity of the injuries from the young insects
that year, 48.—Destitution that prevailed, 44.—Amount of
loss sustained, 45.—Destination of departing swarms of
1875, 47. —The invasion of 1876, 49.—Eastern limit reached,
53.—Omaha conference, 53.

4 Contents.

CHAPTER III.
PAGE

Native Homer sanp GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE OF THE
SPEciEs East oF THE MounraiIns ... . . Od

Source of the devastating swarms that reach into the
Mississippi Valley, 55.—Their origin in the extreme North-
west country lying east of the mountains, 56.—Cause of
their emigration, 57.—Difference between summer and fall
swarms, 58.—The species not at home in the Mississippi
Valley, 62.—Not permanent or able to perpetuate itself
there, 62.—Conditions which prevent such permanence,
63.--Not likely to do serious harm east of the ninety-
fourth meridian, 65.—Reasons why, 65.

CHAPTER IV.

NaturAL History AND TRANSFORMATIONS ... . 69

How the eggs are laid, 69.—Philosophy of the egg-mass,
71.—The female capable of laying more than one egg-
mass, 72.—The escape of the young locust from the egg,
73.—Its emergence from the ground, 78.—Growth and
transformations, 78.—Acquisition of wings, 80.—Number
of molts, 82.—Flight at night, 83.

CHAPTER V.

Hazits, anp Powsrr ror Insuny) ~ 2 eee

Flight and ravages, 85.—Migratory instinct and great de-
structive power confined to a single species west of the
Mississippi, 88.—F ood plants, 89.—Injury to fruit trees,
93.—Time of appearance of invading swarms, 94.—Rate
at which they spread, 95.—Direction of their flight, 96.—
Where the eggs are preferably laid, 96—Time of hatching,
97.—Habits of the young or unfledged locusts, 98.—Direc-
tions in which the young travel, 100.—Rate at which
they travel, 100.—Limit of their eastward spread, 100.—
Not led by kings or queens, 101.—Direction taken by the
departing swarms, 103.—Their destination, 104.

CHAPTER VI.

EFFECTS OF THE YOuNG INSECTS IN THE COUNTRY
WHERE THEY HATCH, BUT WHERE THEY ARE NOT
INDIGENOUS. :° . 0. ewe ee glo es 6 ee

Experience with the young locusts in spring, 107.—Contrast
in summer and fall, 108.—No evil without some compen-

Contents. 5

sating good, 108.—Changes that follow the locusts, 109.—
The prevalence of large green worms, 110.—The sudden
appearance of a peculiar grass, 110.

CHAPTER VII.

PAGE
Naturau ENEMIES OF THE Rocky Mountain Locust 113

Birds and other vertebrate animals, 118.—The good offices
of birds, 113.—Invertebrate animals, 114.—Animals that
attack the eggs, 115.—The Silky Mite, 115.—The Antho-
myia Egg-parasite, 118.—The common Flesh-fly, 123.—
Undetermined larve, 123.—Ichneumon-flies, Ground-bee-
tles, Click-beetles and Myriapods, 126.—Insects that destroy
the active locust, 126.—The Locust-mite, 128.—The Anony-
mous Tachina-fly, 181.—Yellow-tailed Tachina-fly, 134.—
Flesh-fly, 135.

CHAPTER VIII.

REN omesr, CONSIDERATIONS « . 0... .s. 5 «s . «, 189

How best to prevent locust injuries, 139.—Encourage-
ment of natural enemies, 139.—Destruction of the eggs,
139.—Experiments with the eggs, and conclusions drawn
therefrom, 140.—Effects of alternately freezing and thaw-
ing, i41.—Influence of moisture, 143.—Exposure to the free
air, 148.—Burying at different depths, and pressure of the
soil, 149.—Table of temperatures, 152.—Harrowing in the
fall, 153.—Collecting the eggs, 153.—Plowing; how most
effectual, 153.—Irrigation, Tramping, 154.—Destruction of
the young or unfledged Locusts, 155.—Burning, 155.—
Crushing, 157.—Trapping, 157.--Ditching and trenching,
161.—Catching, 161 —Different contrivances for this pur-
pose, 162.—Use of destructive agents, 162.—Coal-oil pans,
163.—The use of coal tar, 164.—The protection of plants
by special applications, 165.—The best means of protect-
ing fruit and shade trees, 166.—Sulphur fumes and smudges,
167.—Destruction of the winged locusts, 167.—Preventive
measures, 169.—Suggestions that may prove of service,
170.—Use of hogs and poultry, 171.—The Signal Service,
172.—Military aid, 173.— Diversified agriculture, 174.—
Organized effort, 176.—State legislation, 176.—Missouri
locust-law, 177.—Kansas locust-laws, 178, 179.—Minnesota
locust-law, 180.—Nebraska locust-law, 184.—How to avert
locust invasions, 186.

6 Contents.

CHAPTER IX.

PAGE
RavacGeEs oF Locusts East OF THE MissIssIPppI . ~. 187

Migratory Locusts in the Eastern States, 187—The Atlan-
tic Locust, 187.—Injury from other, non-migratory species,
190.—Often a serious matter during hot, dry seasons,
193.—Locust flights in Illinois in 1875, 195.—The species
of which the swarms were composed, 197.—Locust flights
east of the Mississippi not composed of the Rocky Mount-
ain species, 201.—Necessity of discriminating between
species, 201.

CHAPTER X.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.< .. = « bee
Nomenclature, 207. — Locust vs. Grasshopper, 207.—

Prairie fires vs. locust ravages, 209.—Fasting and prayer,
213.—Not a divine visitation, 216.—Influence of the wind
in determining the course of locust flights, 216.—Locusts
as food for man, 217.—Unnecessary alarm caused by com-
paratively harmless species, 227.

PREFACE.

Tue author has been frequently urged by those
who have been interested in, or who have profited
by his writings, to republish, in compact form, the
articles that have appeared in the Missouri Entomo-
logical Reports, on the subject of the Rocky Moun-
tain Locust. The work herewith submitted to the
public is the result. It is simply an orderly bring-
ing together and revision of the matter contained in
sundry fugitive articles, and particularly of that
in the Seventh, Kighth and Ninth Reports afore-
mentioned, which have no circulation outside of
Missouri. It could not well have appeared with-
out the kind assistance of Prof. O. 8. Westcott, of
the High School, Chicago, to whom the writer is
under obligations for superintending the details of
publication during his constant absence in the field,
in the performance of Government duty.

Trusting that the work will interest both the pop-
ular and the scientific reader, certain descriptive
passages, of more especial concern to the naturalist,
have not been excluded, but are printed in smaller
type than the text, so that they may be skipped by

8 Preface.

the farmer, or by others who do not care for such
details. These will be found principally in the first
chapter. Except where necessary, for the sake of
precision, technicalities have been avoided. The
term ‘‘larva,’’ frequently employed, means the
young or second state of an insect—that succeeding
the egg; and the term ‘‘ pupa’”’ means the third state,
or that preceding the perfect or mature form. In
most insects, the larva is vermiform, and totally
unlike the parent, while the pupa is dormant or
quiescent. In the locust, however, the change from
one state to another is gradual, and the pupa is
active.

The sign ¢ wherever used, indicates ‘‘male;”’
the sign @ ‘‘female.’’ The illustrations are from
nature by the author, unless otherwise stated, and
where enlarged, the natural size is usually given in
hair-line. The facts and recommendations are the
result of extensive personal experience, and that
they may prove of benefit to the large class which
suffers from locust injuries, is the earnest desire of

Der Tue AUTHOR.

\

Sr. Lours, Mo., May 15th, 1877,

INTRODUCTION.

No insect has ever occupied a larger share of
public attention in North America, or more injuri-
ously affected our greatest national interest, than the
subject of this treatise. Especially during the past
four years has it brought ruin and destitution to
thousands of our Western farmers, and it constitutes
to-day the greatest obstacle to the settlement of
much of the fertile country between the Mississippi
and the Rocky Mountains. Knowledge is power in
protecting our crops against the ravages of a tiny
insect, as in all other undertakings ; and according
as accurate knowledge regarding this locust plague
is disseminated among our people, will they be able
to vanquish the common foe.

It is a gratifying evidence of the progressive
character of our Republic, that the late Congress
made provision for a Commission, the duty of which
is to make a thorough survey of this locust subject,
with a view of enabling our people to protect their
crops against the insect’s attacks, and, if possible,
prevent its incursions from its native breeding
srounds. The task is a great one, and the good

10 Introduction.

that will flow from the labors of the Commission
will, let us hope, be correspondingly creat.

The history of this Migratory Locust, east of the
Rocky Mountain range, as recorded in the following
pages, presents certain marked features. We have,
first, the migrations of winged swarms in autumn,
from the mountain regions of the West and North-
west, into the more fertile country south of the 44th
parallel and east of the 100th meridian ; second, the
return migration of the progeny, as soon as wings are
acquired thenextsummer. Itis the more fertile and
thickly settled country south and east of the limits
indicated, which suffers most, both from the insects
that sweep over it, and from the young that hatch
in its rich soil; and it is principally this country
which, in this work, is designated as outside the
insect’s native home, and in which it can never
become a permanent resident. The species does not
dwell permanently even in much of the country
north and west of those lines, but it flourishes more
and more toward the Saskatchawan, Swan River
and Red River Settlements of British America, and
westward therefrom.

Another marked feature is the eastern limit of the
insect’s spread, at a line broadly indicated by the
94th meridian, and the consequent security from.
serious injury east of that line. These three

Introduction. eat:

————$—$—$ — — — — ————————————_—— eee eee

features —the Northwest origin, the return migra-
tion from the Southeast country (which implies
only temporary injury therein), and the Eastern
_ limit— may be stated as laws governing the insect
east of the Rocky Mountains. They were first fully
propounded by the writer, and will, he believes, be
fully established and confirmed by future events.
Their general truth is a guarantee to the people of
the Mississippi Valley against continued injury from
locust ravages, and should banish from the minds of
the farmers east of the great ‘‘ Father of Waters,”’
the fear of being visited by the disastrous locust
armies.

One other point is, also, made clear in the follow-
ing pages, viz., that in the more thickly settled parts
of the country subject to visitation, man has the
power to utterly rout, by practical and feasible
means, the young or unfledged insects. Indeed,
when our people become familiar with the locust
plague in all its phases, it will cease to be such a
bugbear. There is no part of the country that is
not subject to meteorological or entomological
excesses, and in the long run the Rocky Mountain
Locust is not more injurious in the country which
it occasionally visits, than are some of the farmer’s
insect foes, in other parts of the country. When
we think of the famine and utter destitution that at

12 Introduction.

times overtake some of the Eastern peoples, we
may well feel grateful that we live in a land of such
resources and promise. The threatened country is, —
in the main, one of the most fertile regions on the
face of the globe. It has prospered in the past: it
will prosper in the future ; and in proportion as we
meet this locust enemy with enterprise and con-
certed, intelligent action, in that proportion shall
we vanquish it.

THE Rocky MountTaAIN Locust.

CEEAR AER. .:

CHARACTERS OF THE SPECIES.

Tue Rocky Mountain Locust belongs to the Order of
Straight-winged Insects ( Orthoptera), and to the Family
Locustide, Westwood.* It is the Caloptenus spretus of
Thomas,+ and comes to perfection only in the plains re-
gions of the Rocky Mountains and of the Northwest.

EASILY CONFOUNDED WITH THE RED-LEGGED LOCUST.

The western farmer is too familiar with the insect under
consideration to need any detailed description of it. Yet
this work will doubtless come into the hands of many who
have yet formed no personal acquaintance with the pest,
but who nevertheless, for one reason or another, desire to
become familiar with its appearance. There are also sev-
eral allied species which are apt to be confounded with it,

* Acridii, Latreille.

+ The species was named in MS. by Mr. P. R. Uhler, of Baltimore, Md., but
never by him described. Mr. B. D. Walsh subsequently (Practical Entomologist,
II, p. 1,) adopted Mr. Uhler’s name in connection with a partial description; but
Mr. Thomas first fully defined the species, as here distinguished and referred to
by me.

(13)

14 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

and two of these I desire to call special attention to, be-
cause they are widespread and common. So at the outset
the reader will be served with some rather dry details,
and if such be not palatable, he is advised to pass to other
chapters that may interest him more.

In my endeavors to accurately map out the territory in
Missouri invaded in 1874 by the Rocky Mountain Locust,
I was frequently puzzled by accounts from counties east of
the limit-line beyond which, as I shall show in Chapter VI,
it never reaches to do harm. In every such instance,
where I was able to obtain specimens, they proved to be
the common Red-legged
Locust. This last species
is common in most of the
: States, extending to the

Rep-Leccep Locust. Atlantic, and 1s even re-
ported in parts of the Rocky Mountain region, where the
migratory species is at home. The two bear such a close
general resemblance that even entomologists have doubted
their specific distinctness; and indeed size and colorational
characters would not suffice to separate the exceptional
individuals which depart most from the typical characters
of their species, and approach most to those of the other.

BS Se Yet they are distinct, as

2 species go, and in order to
properly study the distri-
% bution of the Rocky Moun-

AMPA Ge Ay Sak cA a ag tain species, and its power
of becoming acclimated in the Mississippi Valley, or not,
it is of the first importance that observers confound not
the two species. Hence, I shall describe in detail the two
insects. From these details, which follow in smaller type,
it is evident that the distinguishing characters, most easily
observed by the non-entomologist, are the relative length

Characters of the Species. 15
of wing, and the structure of the terminal joint of the
male abdomen, which is turned up like the prow of a
ship—this last character being the
most important [Fig. 4.]
and = constant.
The Rocky Moun-
tain species has
the wings ex-

RED-LEGGED Locust :-—

Rocky Mountain Lo- !
cust :—<Anal characters of tending, when Anal characters of male;

male; a, side view; b,c, hind a, side view ; 0,c, hind and
and top views, of tip. closed, about top views, of tip.

one-third their length beyond the tip of the abdomen
(Fig. 2), and the last or upturned joint of the abdomen
narrowing like the prow of a canoe, and notched cr pro-
duced into two tubercles at top (Fig. 3). The wings of
the Red-legged Locust extend, on a average, about one-
sixth their length beyond the tip of the abdomen (Fig. 1),
and the last abdominal joint is shorter, broader, more
squarely cut off at top, without terminal tubercles, and
looks more like the stern of a barge (Fig. 4).

DESCRIPTIVE: DETAILED COMPARISONS WITH THE RED-
LEGGED LOCUST.

A large amount of material examined, has enabled me to make
very thorough comparisons between the two species. The genus
Caloptenus to which the species belongs, is distinguished principally
by the stoutness of the spine-like tubercle on the fore-breast be-
tween the front legs, and by the tip of the abdomen in the male
being much swollen. Mr. Cyrus Thomas, in his admirable work on
the *‘ Acrididze of N. A.,” has published good descriptions of the
known N. A. species, and I will transfer what he has said of the
two in question—adding only some subsidiary remarks in brackets,
and at the close :

CALOPTENUS FEMUR-RUBRUM, Burm. Handb. Ent., II, 638.
Syn. Acridium femur-rubrum, Deg. Ins. III, P1. 42, Fig. 5, p. 498.
s JSemorale, Oliv., Encyl. Meth., 121 Ins. VI, 228.
Gryllus (Locusta) erythropus, Gmel., Linn. Syst. Nat.1, IV, 2086.
‘““Grizzled with dirty olive and brown; ablack spot extending
from the eyes along the sides of the thorax ; [but never upon the

16 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

third lobe]; an oblique yellow line on each side of the body beneath |
the wings; a row of dusky, brown spots along the middle of the |
wing-covers ; and the hindmost shanks and feet blood-red, with
black spines. The wings are transparent, with avery pale green-
ish-yellow tint next to the body, and are netted with brown lines. |
The hindmost thighs have two large spots on the upper side, and
the extremity black [more correctly three such spots, or, including |
the extreme one at tip, four: Harris seems to have overlooked the |
basal one]; but are red below, and yellow on the inside. The
appendages at the tip of the body in the male are of a long trian-
gular form. Length [to tip of abdomen] from 0.75 to 1 inch ; ex-
pansion of wings 1.25 to 1.75 inches.” As this species, which is so |
common, varies considerably, I have concluded to give Dr. Harris’s
description without change, adding the following: Vertex but
slightly depressed, with a minute angular expansion in front of the
eyes; frontal costa usually but slightly sulcate; sides parallel.
Eyes large and rather prominent. Elytra and wings generallya |
little [usually extending about 1-6 their length beyond the abdomen]
longer than the abdomen. The cerci of the male rather broad and
flat [longer and narrower toward tip than in spretus]; apex of last
ventral segment entire and truncate. The yellow stripes on the |
side extend from the base of the wing to the insertion of the pos- |
terior femora. The ground color varies with localities and age, and |
most of the specimens from one or two sections appear to have un-
spotted elytra; sometimes a reddish-brown tint prevails; at others |
a dark olive ; at others a dark purplish-brown ;syet the markings |
generally remain the same.

Localities. — Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Tennessee, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio,
Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Vancouver's
Island (?), west coast of America(?).—[Thomas, Acridid@ of N. A.
(1878), pp. 163-4.

In addition to what Mr. Thomas states of the variation in color,
it may be added that the dark marks on the hind thighs are in ex-
ceptional specimens wholly wanting, and in others so confluent
that the whole of the upper part is brown-black. In order to show
how variable (within certain limits, however,) is the relative length
of wing, I have made measurements of over two hundred specimens, |
all taken in St. Louis county, Mo. As the length of the abdomen —
is an uncertain criterion, varying according as this last is distended |
with eggs or contracted from one cause and another, I have made |
these measurements from the juncture of the hind thighs and
shanks. The specimens were killed in the cyanide bottle, and
while yet fresh and supple laid flat on a scale divided into hun-—
dredths of aninch. The furthermost hind leg was then stretched |
until the suture between shank and thigh was just visible above the |
inner border of the front wings. Careful measurements were then |

Characters of the Species. 17

taken, first, of the whole body ; second, of the extent of wing be-
yond the base of shank; third, of the extent of abdomen beyond
the same. In the table below, only the extremes and the average
-of these measurements are given. It should be observed that as the
abdomen shrinks slightly in drying, and the wings do not, the
‘figures in the fourth column are somewhat lower than if taken
from dry specimens. This table of measurements will prove
‘interesting when compared with that further on, giving similar
‘measurements of spretus, and will conclusively show, by comparing
the figures in the fourth column, that the specific distinction can not,
as Mr. Walsh thought, be safely and solely left to length of wing
beyond the abdomen; as specimens of either species may in this
respect approach very near each other, and in exceptional cases
entirely agree. Nevertheless, this relative length of wing has great
value as a specific character, inasmuch as the difference in relative
length is the rule, while the converse is a rare exception. The anal
-characters of the male, (Fig. 4) will be found pretty constant and
reliable. Yet they also vary and frequently approach spretus in the
narrowing notched form of the tip. In the female the anal char-
-acters are of less value in distinguishing the species.

CALOPTENUS FEMUR-RUBRUM.
Measurements of the Male; in Hundredths of an Inch.

| Whole length

| * Lensth of | .
- | Length of a = Length of wing
| from front of | “beyond base | ,_,204meD |, | Teyond tip of
wing. of tibia. tibia. abdomen.
ees eee eee
|
‘Lowest------ 0.94 0.02 0.00 0.00
-Highest ____- 1.12 0.12 0.08 0.08
Average. _..-. | 1.03 0.08 0.03 0.03
Measurements of Female.
Lowest..-...- 1.03 0.02 0.00 0.00:
Highest ----- 1.22 0.15 0.15 0.12
Average. -___- 1.15 0.08 0.08 0.04

CALOPTENUS SPRETUS, Uhler Mas.

Syn., Acridium spretum,* Thomas Trans. Ill. St. Agr. Soc.,
, 450.

Very much like C. femur-rubrum, Burm., the principal differ-
ence being in the length of the elytra and wings; a notch at the

* This is called ‘“‘Acridiwm spretis, Uhler”’ in the article alluded to, and I very
Iuch doubt if the description refers to the species in question; first, because I do
2

18. '‘The Rocky Mountain Lhecus.

tip of the last [4] ventral segment. Posterior lobe of the prono-
tum slightly expanding ; median somewhat distinct. Elytra and
wings pass the abdomen about one-third their length. The last
[ 4] ventral segment, which is turned up almost vertically, is some-
what tapering and is notched at the apex, which distinguishes it
from the femur-rubrum ; the notch is small, but is distinct. Pros-
ternal spine robust, subcylindrical, transverse. Migratory.

Color.—Scarcely distinct from the C. femur-rubrum. The occi-
put and disk of the pronotum generally reddish-brown; the posterior
lobe somewhat paler than the anterior and middle. Spots, as in
femur-rubrum, arranged in a line along the middle of the elytra ;
these are a little larger and more abundant toward the apex. The
head and thorax are sometimes a very dark olive-brown, at others,
reddish-brown, and even brownish-yellow, the color deepening
with age. The wings are pellucid, nerves dusky toward the apex;
when flying high and against the sun, the wings look like large
‘snow flakes. —

Dimensions.— ¢ Length [to tip of abdomen], 1 to 1.2 inches;
elytra as long as the body ; posterior femora, 0.55 inch; posterior
tibize,0.5inch. ¢ Length, 0.85 to linch; elytra, 0.9 to 1.05 inches.

As with femur-rubrum, the color of spretus is quite variable,.
and the dead specimens, from which Mr. Thomas’s description is.
evidently made, convey a very imperfect idea of the living colors.
In the fresh or newly fledged specimens the colors, taken from my
notes in the field, are as follows: The more common specimens
are yellowish-white beneath; glaucous across the breast and about:
mouth-parts ; pale bluish-glaucous, often with shades of purple and
ferruginous, on the sides of the head and thorax, and the upper
front of the face, which is sparsely and shallowly punctate and
faintly mottled with fuscous; olive-brown and rust-red on the
occiput and pronotum—the rust-red relieved along the middle in the
following characteristic marks: two stripes on occiput, diverging
from between the eyes, and a very narrow median line — the brown
relieving them in a series of transverse mottlings ; a broad shade on
anterior lobes of pronotum, narrowing posteriorly and intersected
by black along the median carina, and the three transverse sutures;

not believe that spretus occurs in Murphysboro, Ill., where Mr. Thomas was then
residing, and where he quotes Acridium spretis as being quite common; secondly,
because the description in some respects would not apply to spretus as at present
defined. I call attention to this discrepancy, because it is upon, this (as I believe
erroneous) reference, that Mr. Thomas quotes spretus from Illinois ; whereas I
agree with Mr. Walsh that (as we understand the species to-day) it is not indige-
nous to that State. Where the anal characters of the male are not carefully
given, it is impossible to be sure of the species. Mr. Thomas himself now
believes that he must have had before him what is defined further on as Aélanis.

Characters of the Species. 19

and, finally, a narrower shade on the posterior lobe, dilating pos-
teriorly aad also with a black medial line along the carina. The
abdomen is pale, inclining to yellow, beneath; more or less bluish,
or lilaceous above and marked with black especially toward base:
it also shows more or less distinctly the pale lines and mottlings
mentioned further on in the description of the pupa in which
they are more distinct. These are in a general way, two pale
lengitudinal lines, diminishing anally, one subdorsal with an
inferior coincident spot on each joint ; the other stigmatal, twice as
broad, with an oblique dark mark dividing each joint, besides other
smaller and less distinct spots and mottlings. In the male the anal
parts are pale. The front wings, when closed, present a ground
color of pale grayish-yellow, inclining to olivaceous: they are gen-
erally yellowish at base and the inner or dorsal surface is more or
less ferruginous: there is a characteristic whitish-yellow medial
shade along the basal half, rendering more conspicuous the larger
spots of which there are about a dozen, irregularly arranged, some
of the middle ones being usually confluent: when open, the wing is
seen to be pellucid toward tip; more opaque basally owing to the
increase of the reticulate veins, which are brown-black toward tip
and yellow outwardly, whitish-yellow medially, and ferruginous
inwardly, toward base: the small spots are brown, the larger black.
The hind wings, except a yellowish or brownish shade at apex and
along front edge, and a greenish tint at base, are transparent and
colorless, with the larger veins on the outside brown-black, and the
inner ones pale. The front and middle legs are yellowish, inclining
to red, the middle thighs with slight dusky shades outside and at
tip. The hind legs have the thighs striped with pale glaucous and
reddish on the outside and upper half of inside and four black or
dusky marks on the upper edge, especially inside, the basal smallest
and the terminal one largest and extending beneath around the
knee; the inferior groove.is generally yellowish and the transverse
v-shaped and two longitudinal ridges on the outside, are whitish-
yellow: the shanks are coral-red with black spines; the feet some-
what paler, with black claws. The antenne are pale yellow, or
brownish, tipped with pale annuli; generally darkest toward tip.
The eyes are dark olivaceous, and the ocelli (one at anterior front
of each eye, and one in the sulcate depression of frontal costa)
_ brown, with a black and a white border.

Besides the black on wings and legs already mentioned, there

20 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

‘|

are the following characteristic black marks: an annulus near tips
of palpi, the inner borders of the mandibles, a spot at the upper
outer corner of clypeus, a spot running narrowly around hind border
of eyes and then from about the middle of the eye, broadening to
thorax; a broad patch on the upper side of anterior half of pro-
thorax, zig-zag beneath, and enclosing two pale subquadrate spots,
the upper anterior one across the second suture, the lower one
between the second and third sutures; finally, more or less distinct
lines along and around the meso- and meta-thoracic sutures.

There is also a conspicuous pale yellow mark bordering supe-
riorly the black stripe behind the eyes, the black of prothorax
inferiorly, at outer base of front wings, from this to base of hind
thighs and around bases of both middle and hind thighs.

In the dead specimens all these colors become more dingy and yellow.
Palpi and front legs in some specimens tinged with red or blue;
the hind tibiz sometimes yellowish instead of red, especially in the
middle; at other times bluish.

Larva.—When newly hatched, the larva is of a uniform pale gray
without distinctive marks. It soon, however, becomes mottled with
the characteristic marks. After the first molt the hind thighs are
conspicuously marked on the upper outside with a longitudinal
black line ; the thorax is dark with the median dorsal carina and
two distinct lateral stripes pale yellow, the black extending on the
head behind the eyes. The sides of the thorax then become more
yellow with each molt, the black on the hind thighs less pro-
nounced, and the face almost always black. The occiput and ab-
domen above are mottled with brown, the former marked with a
fine median, and two broader anteriorly converging pale lines, the |
latter with two rather broken lateral lines of the same color.

Pupa.—The pupa is characterized by its paler, more yellow
color, bringing more strongly into relief the black on the upper part
of the thorax and behind the eyes; by the spotted nature of the |
face, especially along the ridges, the black being less persistent; |
by the isolation of the black subdorsal mark on the two anterior |
lobes of the prothorax, and by the large size of the wing-pads, |
which are now dark, with a distinct pale discal spot, and pale veins —
and borders. The hind shanks incline to bluish rather than red as in ©
the mature insect. The ground-color in the immature states varies |
from pale yellow to orange-brown and even black, and from pale —
yellow to pure green, as in the variety viridis. In many of the |

|
|

Characters of the Species. 21

larve there is a distinct pale line along the medio-dorsum; in
others there is no trace of it.

In the following table of measurements, introduced for com-
parison with that given of femur-rubrum, the same rules were
adopted as in the other case, and particular pains were taken to get
specimens from as many parts of the ravaged country as possible ;
also, by study of the structural and other peculiarities of spretus
to guard against the chance mixing of specimens of femur-rubrum.

: CALOPTENUS SPRETUS.
Measurements of the Male; in Hundredths of an Inch.

Whole length man . Length of ‘
gth of wing Length of wing
fod aes of beyond base” | parone nace of | beyond tip of
wing. of tibia. : nia abdomen.
| |
Lowest...--- 1.10 0.25 0.02 0.20
Highest _---- 1.40 0.43 0.12 0.39
Average. _.-- 1.28 0.34 0.05 0.31
Measurements of Female.
Lowest..---- ies ls 0.28 0.04 0.13
Highest--_-_.- - 1.53 0.52 0.19 0.39
Averaze..-_-- 1.35 0.35 0.10 0.27

Finally, besides the structural and more reliable characters
already given, the two species may, in general terms, be distin-
guished by the following less reliable and more inconstant charac-
ters as presented in cabinet specimens: Spretus is the larger
species; the antennez are slightly shorter and paler ; the occiput
and two anterior lobes of the prothorax are more livid and darker ;
the third lobe of prothorax broader; the dark, subdorsal, pro-
thoracic mark running from the eyes less pronounced ; the oblique,
. yellow line from base of wings to base of hind thighs more often
obsolete; the front wings paler toward tips, more ferruginous at
base, with larger, more conspicuous spots; the anal abdominal
joint of male also much paler ; the cerci and valves in the female
generally shorter and more robust.

In femur-rubrum the general huc is more olivaceous and darker,
the black mark behind eyes is broader, and that on prothorax
also broader, more straight beneath, and seldom enclosing white
marks; the pale stripe from base of wing to hind thighs is more
conspicuous and the spots on wings subobsolete.

Such are the distinguishing features between these two insects,

22 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

when the more typical specimens of the western spretus are com- |
pared with femur-rubrum as it occurs around St. Louis. That these |
distinguishing features will lose their value in proportion as
abundant material from all parts of the country is examined and
compared, I have not the least doubt; for I have already shown
that such is the fact so far as coloration and length of wing is con-
cerned, and the meagre material which I have from the East
indicates considerable variation and approach in the more important
structural characters.

A THIRD, CLOSELY RELATED SPECIES WHICH IS EASILY
CONFOUNDED WITH THE OTHER TWO.

There is still a third species common in the Mississippi
Valley, and particularly along the Atlantic coast, and in
the New England States. It is smaller than either the
Rocky Mountain or the Red-legged species, but in struc-
ture and relative length of wing much more nearly
resembles the former than the latter ; in other words, its
relative length of wing enables it to fly with almost the
same facility as its Rocky Mountain congener. This
species I have called the Atlantic Migratory Locust, and
it is described below, in comparison with its close allies:

CALOPTENUS ATLANIS, RrLEy.—Length to tip of abdomen, 0.70
—0.85 inch ; to tip of closed wings, 0.92—1.05 inches. At once
distinguished from femur-rubrum by the notched character of the
anal abdominal joint in the male and by the shorter, less tapering
cerci ; also by the greater relative length of wings which extend,
on an average, nearly one-third their length beyond the tip of the
abdomen, in the dried specimens; also by the larger and more dis-
tinct spots on the wings—in all which characters it much more
closely resembles spretus than femur-rubrum. From spretus, again,
it is at once distinguished by the smaller size, the more distinct
separation of the dark mark running from the eyes on the pro-
thorax and of the pale line from base of wings to hind thigh ; also
by the anal joint in the 4, tapering more suddenly and by the two
lobes forming the notch being less marked ; also by the pale marks
on the outside of hind thighs being much more distinctly relieved.
From both species it is distinguished not only by its smaller size

Characters of the Species. 23

but by the deeper, more livid color of the dark parts, and the
paler yellow of the light parts—the colors thus more strongly
contrasting.

Just as the typical femur-rubrum is at once distinguished from
the typical spretus by the characters indicated ; so Atlanis, though
structurally nearer to spretus, is distinguished from it at a glance
by its much smaller size and darker, more marbled coloring. The
contrast is all the greater in the living specimens, and I have seen
no specimens of spretus that at af approach it in these respects.

Whether this is the femur-rubrum as defined by DeGeer or by
Harris, it is almost impossible to decide, though Harris’s figure of
jfemur-rubrum better represents it than the true femur-rubrum, as
subsequently defined by Thomas, and as found in Illinois and
Missouri.

It has always been a question among orthopterists,
whether spretus should be considered specifically distinct
from femur-rubrum, and Mr. Uhler has himself expressed
to me his doubts as to the two being distinct. This inde-
cision, which I myself very freely shared, may be attrib-
uted principally to the fact that the species just described
(Atlanis) has very generally been mistaken for femur-
rubrum, and that the accounts of this latter rising into
the air in swarms have in reality had reference to the
former species. The only reference to this longer-winged
species, in the East, that I am acquainted with, is that by
Dr. A. 8. Packard, Jr.. whose mention of the occurrence
of spretus in Maine and Massachusetts, as exhibited by
specimens in the museum of the Peabody Academy of
Science, (Am. Naturalist, Vol. VIII, p. 502), refers to this
species, as I have ascertained by specimens submitted to
me. This Atlanis as it occurs in the Mississippi Valley,
varies somewhat from the typical form as found in the
mountain regions of the Atlantic, being somewhat larger.
It is found with femur-rubrum in varying proportions,
sometimes predominating, at others in small numbers, or

24 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

entirely absent. Asa rule it is most abundant on.open |
prairies, and in spring and summer is always found in such _ |
situations. It matures rather later than spretus, in the
same latitude but earlier than femur-rubrum, which is not.
at all infrequent in timber.

Whether these three insects, as here defined, are really
distinct species, or only races of one and the same, is a
question that each individual entomologist will decide for
himself, according to his idea of what constitutes a species.
All discussion at the present day as to whether we are
dealing with species or varieties in the lower classes of ani-
mals, is more or less puerile. Naturalists have no fixed
standard as to what constitutes a species, and are fast com-
ing to the conviction that there is no such thing in nature,
and that the term is conventional—an abstract conception.
Yet it is the custom, in entomology and botany more par-
ticularly, to separate by names, under this term species,
forms that are separable and show constant differences ;.
and the separation of such by the study of large material,
and their life-histories is of far more weight and value
than that by the examination and description, however
detailed, of one or two individuals. As ordinary distine-
tions go, however, there can be no doubt as to the specific
distinctness of these three forms, notwithstanding my owm
conviction that they merge into one another through excep-
tional intermediate individuals. I have little doubt that
they will cross with each other and produce fertile progeny,,
just as many species of plants are known todo; but such
crossing, if it occurs, must be more frequent between
Semur-rubrum and Atlanis than between either of these
and spretus ; because this last is the most effectually sep-
arated geographically—a fact proved alike by its dying
out east of the 94th meridian, and by its perishing when

Characters of the Species. 25:

artificially transported in the egg and hatehed in the
Atlantic States.*

It is in this, as it is in almost every other instance where
large material from widely different parts of the country
is examined ; the lines which are easily drawn between
species characterized from single individuals, break down,
and continually remind us of the arbitrary nature of spe-
cifie definitions, and of the fact that most of the species, as
defined among lower animals and plants, have no real ex-
istence innature. There are races of femur-rubrum which
approach even the larger differentialis as much as they
approach spretus. In short, without speculating on the com-
mon origin, in the past, of all these species—and, indeed,
of all species composing present genera—we behold, in a
broad sense, a short-winged species ( femur-rubrum) com-
mon to the whole country between the Rocky Mountains
and the Atlantic, giving way, in the higher altitudes alike
of the Rocky Mountain and the White Mountain, and
probably of the Alleghany regions, to a long-winged one ;
and the reason why the western long-winged species
is more disastrous than that of the East, is doubtless
due to its larger size and to the larger extent of table land
in which it breeds, as well as to the fact that the western
climate is more subject to excessive drouths, which cut off
the supply of nourishment at a time when the insects are
acquiring wings, and thus oblige them to migrate—such
conditions occurring much more rarely in the home of the
eastern species. In the lower country on either side of
the Mississippi, the typical characters of the three species
are more liable to vary and to approach one another. The
future orthopterist, as he studies material from all parts

* See an observation by Mr. S. S. Rathvon, of Lancaster, Pa., who concludes.
from experiment, that the climate there is ‘‘unwholesome”’ to the species. (Am.
Entomologist, II, p. 88.)

26 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

of the country, will very likely write: Caloptenus femur-
rubrum, DeGeer, var. spretus, Thomas, var. Atlanis, Riley;
but the broad fact will remain that these three forms—
call them races, varieties, species, or what we will—are
separable, and that they each have their own peculiar
habits and destiny.

COMPARISONS OF THE THREE ALLIED SPECIES IN THEIR
EARLY STAGES.

Comparisons of the immature stages of these three species show
that, when large material is examined, femur-rubrum and Atlanis
are more nearly allied than this last and spretus, though, as in the
mature insects, they approach each other through exceptional
individuals.

In the first stage, spretus has a decidedly ferocious look, the head
being out of all proportion to the rest of the body. The colors are
brown, gray and dull white, the general tint being light gray, and
the insect presenting a mottled and speckled appearance. The
antenne have several joints less than when mature, and are more
thick and clavate. The frontal ridge is more prominent and deeply
sulecate. The cerci extend beyond the rounded tip of the abdomen.
The tarsi show the three joints, but the middle one less distinctly
than afterwards. The medio-dorsum from vertex to near the tip of
the abdomen, is carinate and pale. Of the dark dots and marks
the most conspicuous and persistent (for some specimens are much
darker than others) are, one behind the eyes, a subquadrate one on
the side of the meta-thorax, a crescent streak on the sides of the
swollen end of the hind femora, and two spots on the bulbous base of
the hind tibiz. In the second stage the face with very rare excep-
tions is pitchy black, the top of fhe head showing the three charac-
teristic rows of transverse black marks on a rust-brown ground, the
outer rows curving around the eyes, and the middle one broadest
and divided by a narrow medial, pale line ; the rust-brown color
continues, with more irregular black marks on the prothorax, nar-
rowing toward its middle ; on each side of it the anterior part of
the prothorax is black, relieved below by a conspicuous, arched
pale line, and this again with a more or less distinct dark lateral
mark beneath. The cheeks are mottled with rust-brown and edged
behind with yellow; the head beneath, and palpi, except a black
rim around tips, are pale yellowish. The other colors are much as

Characters of the Species. 27

in the mature insects. With each succeeding stage the broad and
pale streaks of prothorax intensify, and as soon as the hind wing-
pads are turned up over the front pair, viz., in the fourth stage, the
pale spot at the base which becomes so conspicuous in the pupa, is
visible. The black face after the first molt is quite characteristic,
and often endures to the pupa state.

Aitlanis, in the first stage, is distinguished by its deeper, more
livid, or rosy, less speckled appearance, and more strongly contrast-
ing brighter yellow venter. In the subsequent stages these
colorational differences still prevail, and the face is not black as in
spretus,; the pale spot on the hind wing-pads is less conspicuous in
the fourth stage, and the pupa is distinguished not only by its
smaller size and different color, but by the narrower, more obsolete
black marks of the prothorax and by the wing-pads being consider-
ably shorter and smaller, the hind pair livid, with only rarely a
touch of black at base, and with the pale spot obsolete. The pale
streaks on the outside of the hind thighs are always conspicuous.
It presents in fact a marked contrast to the pupa of spretus.

Femur-rubrum, in the early stages, is distinguished by the gen-
erally paler, less livid and greener hue; by the black being more
intense and contrasting more with the pale colors; by the wing-
pads having no pale spot, and by the outer black mark on hind
thighs showing no pale streaks.

Spretus, though palest when mature, has altogether the largest
amount of black in the immature stages, and notwithstanding the
osculant individuals, one who has great familiarity with these three
species in life, can distinguish them with great ease at any time
after the first molt, and can even distinguish the cast off skins.

Further, Atlanis invariably has a pale face— yellow or greenish,
speckled with gray-brown ; and just as invariably, the outside of
the hind thighs, more mottled, with pale oblique streaks through
the black. ‘

Femur-rubrum has a pale face but less speckled, with no pale
streaks through black of hind thighs, and with the upper white
mark running from the side of the prothorax much the most con-
Spicuous on the head behind the eyes.

A GREEN VARIETY OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST.

In this connection I will also record the occurrence of a
variety of spretus, in which all the pale or normally yellow-

28 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

ish-gray parts are bright green. These green individuals
are conspicuous among their brown brethren. In the Mis-
sissippi Valley they generally constitute about one in a
thousand of the progeny of invading swarms; but I have
not noticed them among the fresh arrivals from the moun-
tains. The green endures from the larva to the perfect
state, and I have designated this variety as viridis. It is
but a marked colorational variety, in a species which has
not heretofore been known to present these colorational
differences, and no one having a true conception of the
differences of the three species just defined would think
of placing this latter on the same grade.

THE SPECIES IS PURELY AMERICAN.

As the idea prevails among many of our farmers that
our Rocky Mountain Locust is identical with the devastat-
ing species of the Old World, and Mr. Z. 8. Ragan, in an
otherwise excellent essay, read at the annual meeting of
the Missouri State Horticultural Society for 1875, gives it
as his opinion that our locusts “‘came over from Asia via
Behring’s Strait, to British America, and thence extended
from time to time over Washington Territory, Oregon,
California, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Dakota,
Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas,
Indian Territory, Nebraska, part of Missouri, Iowa, Min-
nesota and Wisconsin ;” it may be well to insist here that.
there is no foundation whatever for such an opinion, and
that spretus is a purely American species, occurring in no
part of Europe or Asia,

CAPT ER, EI,

CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY.

THE LOCUST PLAGUE IN THE ‘‘ OLD WORLD.”

TuHE plague of locusts is as old, nay older, than the Bible,
where, in Exodus, we are told how they went up over the
land of Egypt and “covered the face of the whole earth,
so that the land was darkened ; and they did eat every
herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the
hail had left ; and there remained not any green thing in
the trees, or in the herbs of the field, throughout all the
land of Egypt.” * Paulus Orosius tells us that in the year
of the world 3800, such infinite myriads of locusts were

blown from the coast of Africa into the sea and drowned,
[Fig. 5.]

Ws

WS aS >

Migratory Locust oF EUROPE.
that, being cast upon the shore, they emitted a stench
greater than could have been produced by the carcasses of
one hundred thousand men, and caused a general pesti-

* Exodus, X, 15.
(29)

30 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

lence.* Numerous, indeed, are the accounts of general
devastation, pestilence and famine that have frequently
followed in the wake of these locusts in the East, and
travelers in South Africa, Asia and South Europe, have
left us abundant records of the fearful devastations of this
« Army of the Great God,’'as the Arabs term these migrat-
ing hosts. Their history is one of dire calamity and deso-
lation ; and their devastations have become part of the
history of nations: they have even been perpetuated in
coins. Those who have the curiosity to acquaint them-
selves with the history of locusts in the more ancient parts
of the world, can not do better than refer to Kirby and
Spence,t or to the compilation published in this country
by Frank Cowan.{ It suffices licre to state that the inju-
ries by locusts in the desert countries bordering mountain
ranges in the East, are by no means matters of past his-
tory only, but that they are felt occasionally at the pres-
ent time as they have been for all time past. In 1866,
during the same year as our previous great invasion, Alge-
ria and the whole country in the north of Africa, was
severely visited, causing the famine of 1867, and the epi-
demics which followed. In 1874, these insects caused
serious alarm in the same parts of Africa;-and M. H.
Brocard tells us that in the three subdivisions of Constan-
tine, Setiff and Batna, 4,820 hectolitres (about 14,000 bush-
els) of eggs were collected.§ Every year since, they have
done serious injury in parts of Europe, and this very year
(1877) reports of fearful destruction come from Tripoli
and Barbary. The species most conspicuous in its devas-
tations, especially in Central Europe, is the Migratory

* Oros, Contra Pag. 1, V, c. 2.

+ Introduction to Ent. I, Letter VII, London, 1828. _

+ Curious History of Insects, pp. 101—131, Phila., 1875.
§ Comptes Rendus, Paris Academy, Jan. 25, 1875.

Chronological History. 31

Locust (dipoda migratoria, Linn), though in Africa
and Asia the Acridium perigrinum and the Caloptenus
Italicus have similar destructive and migratory powers.
All these insects belong to the same family as our own
species, and the last named, even to the same genus.

LOCUST RAVAGES IN AMERICA.

While the chronological record of locust invasions and
devastations in the “ Old World,” is full and complete,
the record of such invasions in our own country has never
been fully written. The most complete record that I know
of, is that by Alexander S. Taylor, of Monterey, Cal., pub-
lished in the Smithsonian Report for 1858, (pp. 200—213),
to which I am indebted for the earlier accounts, which
follow. From what is here given, it is very evident that
these insects have occasionally proved great plagues from
the earliest settlement of the country ; and there can be
no doubt that from time immemorial, or since our conti-
nent assumed its present configuration, they have from
time to time played the same role of devastators, and that
the only exceptional circumstance about the 1874 and 1876
irruptions, compared with those of former years, is the
larger area of settled and cultivated country devastated,
and the consequent greater amount of distress entailed.

The earliest record I can find of locust injuries in
America, is in Gage’s West Indies, under date of the
year 1632. In speaking of their visitation in Guatemala,
he says :

‘“‘ The first year of my abiding there it pleased God to send one
of the plagues of Egypt to that country, which was of Locusts,
which I had never seen till then. They were after the manner of
our Grasshoppers, but somewhat bigger, which did fly about in
numbers so thick and infinite that they did truly cover the face of
the sun, and hinder the shining forth of the beams of that bright

planet. Where they lighted, either upon trees or standing corn,
there was nothing expected but ruin, destruction and barrenness ;

32 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

for the corn they devoured, the fruits of trees they ate and con-
sumed, and hung so thick upon the branches that with their weight
they tore them fromthe body. The highways wereso covered with
them that they startled the traveling mules with their fluttering
about their heads and feet. My eyes were often struck with their
wings asI rode along; and much adoI had to see my way, what
with a montero wherewith I was fain to cover my face, what with
the flight of them which were still before my eyes. Where they
lighted in the mountains and highways, there they left behind them
their young ones, which were found creeping upon the ground,
ready to threaten such a second year’s plague, if not prevented ;
wherefore all the towns were called, with spades, mattocks and
shovels, to dig long trenches and therein to bury the young ones.”

The early Jesuit missionaries of California have left nu-
merous records of their injuries on the Pacific coast.
Father Michael del Barco records their visitations in Cal-
ifornia in 1722, 1746, and the three succeeding years ;
also in 1753, 1754 and 1765. Clavigero, in his History of
California, also gives a very full description of these pests.

In 1827, 1828 and 1834, they destroyed all the crops in
the rancheros and missions, and in 1838 and 1846, again
did great damage in Upper California. ‘“ For more than
half a century they have troubled the Argentine Republic
in South America. In a latitude corresponding with Lou-
isiana and Texas, but in the southern hemisphere, they have
made agriculture worthless, and rendered the settlement
of that magnificent country between the Andes and the
Atlantic Ocean, by a dense population, impossible.” * Dr.
B. A. Gould gives a graphic account of a swarm of locusts
in 1873 that devastated Cordoba, a swarm at least twenty
miles in length and six miles in breadth, extending for an
altitude of 5° like a thick, black trail of smoke.t Of the
ravages of locusts in the Atlantic States, I shall speak
more particularly in a future chapter. We have records
of great injury from locusts in New Hampshire, Massa-

'* Rey. Edw. Fontaine, in New Orleans 7imes, March, 1866.
+ Amer. Journ. of Sc., Dec , 1873.

Chronological History. 33
chusetts and Vermont, at several periods during the latter
part of the last century.

HISTORY OF THE RAVAGES OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN
LOCUST.

Coming now tothe chronological history of the particu-
lar Rocky Mountain species in question, anything like
substantial records fail us, and in order to give the
following summary of its devastations during the present
century, I have had to ransack the files of hundreds of
periodicals, and to depend on a number of fugitive arti-
cles published during the last twenty-five years.

In 1818 and 1819, according to Neill’s History of Min-
nesota, vast hordes of locusts appeared in Minnesota,
eating everything in their course; in some casesthe ground
being covered with them to the depth of three or four
inches. In the same years they were extremely injurious
in the Red River country in Manitoba. In 1820, or the
succeeding year, we hear of their falling upon the western
counties of Missouri, as described in the following items :

‘‘ ‘We were informed by old residents of West Missouri and
some of the Indians, that long ago, I think it was in 1820, there
Was just such a visitation of grasshoppers as is now afflicting us.
Th -y came in the autumn by millions, devouring every green thing,
but too late todo much harm. They literally filled the earth with
their eggs, and then died. The next spring they hatched out, but
did but little harm, and when full-fledged left for parts unknown.
Other districts of country have been visited by them, but so far as
I could learn, they have done but little harm after the first year.”—

-§. T. Kelsey, Ottawa, (now of Hutchinson,) Kansas, in Prairie
Farmer, June 15, 1867, p. 395.

A Missouri paper publishes a statement by an old settler that
great numbers of grasshoppers appeared in Sept. 1820, doing much
damage. The next spring they hatched out, destroying the cotton,
flax, hemp, wheat and tobacco crops; but the corn escaped uninjured.
About the middle of June they all disappeared, flying off in a south-
east direction.— Western Rural, 1867.

It is reasonable to suppose that these 1820 swarms also

ravaged Kansas and the country to the northwest, very
3

34 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

much as they did in 1874 and 1876, though no records of
the fact are to be found, for the simple reason that the
western country was unsettled by farmers. We know that
during the same and the previous year the crops were
destroyed in many parts of Manitoba, and the migrations —
of 1819 and 1820 must have been very similar to those of |
1873 and 1874. |

In 1845, and again in 1849, we have accounts, from vari-
ous sources, of their swarming in Texas. In 1855 there |
was another very general irruption all over the western
part of the continent. Says Mr. Taylor, in the Smithso- |
nian Report already alluded to: “Up to the 11th of
October, 1855, and commencing about the middle of May, |
these insects extended themselves over a space of the
earth’s surface much greater than has ever before been
noted. They covered the entire Territories of Washing- |
ton and Oregon, and every valley of the State of Califor- —
nia, ranging from the Pacific Ocean to the eastern base of |
the Sierra Nevada; the entire territories of Utah and |
New Mexico; the immense grassy prairies lying on the
eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains ; the dry mountain —
valleys of the republic of Mexico, and the countries of
Lower California and Central America; and also those
portions of the State of Texas which resemble, in physi-
cal characteristics, Utah and California. The records
prove that the locusts extended themselves, in one year,
over a surface comprised within thirty-eight degrees of |
latitude, and, in the broadest part, eighteen degrees of
longitude.

“On several days in June, July and August, of 1855,
the grasshoppers (or /angostas of the Spaniards) were —
seen in such incredible numbers in the valley of the Sacra- |
mento, in California; in the valley of Colima, Southwest
Mexico ; in the valley of the Great Salt Lake ; in Western

Chronological History. | 35

Texas, and in certain valleys of Central America, that
they filled the air like flakes of snow on a winter’s day,
and attacked everything green or succulent with a
voracity and despatch destructive to the hopes of the
agriculturalists.”

They are described as reducing the Mormons of Salt
Lake, during that year, to a simpler diet than that of John
the Baptist, for the people had to fall back on the locusts
without the honey ; and they caused a good deal of suffer-
ing in the then Territories of Kansas, Nebraska and
Minnesota. The summer of 1855, like that of 1874, was
exceedingly dry—the driest, in fact, that had been known
for ten years.

In 1856 they again made their appearance in parts of
Utah, California and Texas, but in diminished numbers.
In Minnesota, however,* and in Western and North-
western lowa their ravages during this eyes seem to have
been greater.

In 1857 we hear of them again in various parts of the
Northwest} and around the Assiniboine settlement in
Manitoba,{ and they destroyed the entire crop of a region
of country extending from the base of the third plateau
to the Gulf of Mexico, 150 miles in length, and about 80
miles in breadth, including the entire valley of the Gauda-
loupe, and much of the territory watered by the Colorado
and San Antonio rivers. Throughout this whole area of
12,000 square miles every green thing cultivated by man
was consumed, and how much further northwest the
ravages extended is not known.§ ‘They reached as far
east as Central Iowa.||

* Rep. of Dept. of Agr., 1863, p. 36.

+ Walsh’s Ill. Ent. Rep., pp. 92-3; Prairie Farmer, April 25, 1868.
t Canada Farmer, Aug. 15, 1874.

§ Rev. E. Fontaine, loc. cit.

| Prairie Farmer, April 25, 1868.

36 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

It is probable that part of the injury reported in 1856.
and 1857 east of the Rocky Mountains was caused by the
progeny from the immense swarms that swept over the
country in 1855 ; and it is quite likely that some of them
reached Missouri, for Mr. H. B. Palmer, of Hartville, has
related to me that, about 1857, these insects passed through
a portion of Wright county, from north to south, stripping
everything on their way.

In 1860, as several Kansans have informed me, these
locusts came and did much damage around Topeka, re-
maining a few days and leaving the last of August. This.
must have been a limited and rather local swarm.

In 1864 we again. hear of locust invasions into Manitoba,
Minnesota, and around Sioux City, lowa, their eggs hatch-
ing and the young doing much damage the following year,
1865. In Colorado one of the most destructive visitations
ever known there came in 1864 from the northwest, doing
much damage, as did the progeny in 1865. :

The year 1866 was another marked locust year, and the
first, since that of 1855, in which the damage was sufficiently
great and wide-spread as to attract national attention.
The insects swarmed over the Northwest and did great
-damage in Kansas, Nebraska, and Northeastern Texas, and
invaded the western counties of Missouri very much as
they did in 1874. They came, however, about a month
later than in that year. They were often so thick that
trains were seriously delayed on account of the immense
numbers crushed on the track. Mr. Walsh has published
a full record of this invasion in the Report already cited.*

In 1867 the progeny of those which fell upon the country
the previous year did more or less damage, which was ex-
tensively reported during the early part of the growing

* First Annual Rep. as Acting State Ent. of Ill., pp. 83-4 (1868).

Chronological History 37

season. The damage, however, was not general, and good
crops were harvested in most of the country invaded the
year before. But later in the season fresh swarms came
from the Rocky Mountain region, and fell upon the fertile
plains of the Mississippi Valley. Thus there were two
fresh invasions, the one following the other, in the years
1866 and 1867 ; an occurrence which is quite exceptional,
and to which the immens? damage done during the latter
year is, in great part, attributable. Mr. Walsh (Joc. cit.)
has given us, at great pains, a pretty full record of the
doings of locusts in 1867, and from said record he makes
it quite clear that the invasion of 1866 was followed in
1867 by a fresh, though less extensive one, direct from
the Rocky Mountain region. I may add that a number of
scraps and records of the insect’s doings during those two
years, other than those he has brought together, bear out
his deductions. The locusts also fell upon Utah in
immense swarms in 1867.

During the subsequent years of 1868 and 1869 we hear
more or less of the remnants of these two vast swarms
from the mountain region, and of their injury in the Mis-
sissippi Valley; but their numbers are always diminishing
and their enemies increasing, so that during the latter year
not a healthy individual was to be found, and in 1870 the
race had nearly vanished from the invaded country—at
least from its eastern portions. In 1868, they were par-
ticularly disastrous in Utah and the Red River Settlement
of British America.

In 1869 there were still some remnants left of the 1867
invasion. From Leavenworth, Kansas, I received some,
sent in a tin box, and in reaching me there was but one
left, which, having eaten the others, was master of the
situation.. They hatched out in countless numbers from
the 20th to 24th of March, in Holt county, Mo., and

38 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

were destructive east of Nemaha county, Kansas; but the
injury that year was trifling, and the records show that.
the insects became more and more impotent.

During this year, 1869, and the two following years, as
will be seen from what is said in Chapter IX, many of the
common locusts of the country were unusually numerous
and destructive ; and the reports of their injuries must
not be confounded with those of the Rocky Mountain spe-
cies. Mr. Cyrus Thomas (Am. Ené. II, p. 82,) reports
finding this species, in June, 1869, around St. Joseph, Mo.
He says: ‘‘ We arrived very early in the morning, and
then they appeared to be somewhat torpid ; yet when
those in the grass were disturbed by the hogs, which were
feeding upon them, they hopped about quite briskly.
Swarms of them, as I was informed, had been flying over |
that section for a week previous to our arrival.”

In 1870, what was probably this last species, swept down.
upon the country around Algona, Iowa, and in 1871
the progeny ‘“‘hatched by myriads till after the first of
June,” and left about the first of July.* During this year
their injuries were also reported in parts of Utah and
Colorado.

In 1872 again they did some harm in parts of Kansas,
for Mr. Albert Cooper, of Beloit, Kan., wrote me (Sept. 1,
1872): “They came down upon us a few days ago, and
are now eating up everything green.” Mr. J. D. Putnam,
who spent the summer of 1872 in the Rocky Mountains,
also wrote me “that spretus was quite numerous in the
valley of the Troublesome River.”

THE INVASION OF 1873.

During the years 1873 and 1874, we had a repetition, in a
great measure, of the years 1866 and 1867, The invasion

* Western Rural, Chicago, September 26, 1874.

"OOVIIMO (4
ANAVN(OMSIN Var

<9
go wosyuage

VL? }

vp a

On WATeueiIpuy i fe}

ate 4 . i Se anh te ole

Vo CH O1
ON jODVOlH SOW LOT SAT
Vea) y MOL

smmnme = KYL, KNOG *
aa NUM [LAL

ae

a

Udine
Se

| Bisse (
ea \ Jo Ge Sa yoogs wows olf ssan 0G}

PLEA WoT ck

~~

Country invaded in 1 874, but which suffered less on

account of being sparsely settled.

Chronological History. 39

of 1873 was pretty general overa strip of country running
from the northern parts of Colorado and southern parts of
‘Wyoming, through Nebraska and Dakota, to the south-
western counties of Minnesota, and northwestern counties
of lowa—the injury being most felt in the last two more
thickly settled States. The insects poured in upon this
country during the summer and laid their eggs in all the
more eastern portions reached. The cry of distress that
went up from the afflicted people of Minnesota in the. fall
of that year is still fresh in mind, and the pioneers of
Western Iowa, in addition to the locust devastations, suf-
fered severe damage from a terrific tornado. During the
same year great ravages were also committed by locusts
in Southern California. |

THE INVASION OF 1874.

We now come to the locust visitation of 1874, ‘which
will long be remembered as more disastrous, and as caus-
ing more distress and destitution than any of its prede-
cessors. The calamity was national in its character, and
the suffering in the ravaged districts would have been
great, and famine and death the consequence, had it not
been for the sympathy of the whole country and the ener-
getic measures taken to relieve the afflicted people—a sym-
pathy begetting a generosity which proved equal to the
occasion, as it did in the case of the great Chicago fire,
and which will ever redound to the glory of our free Rul
public, and of our Union.

From a very large number of data, culled from every
available source, the accompanying map (Plate II) has
been prepared, which will at a glance illustrate the country
liable to be overrun by this Rocky Mountain scourge, and
more especially the territory in the United States east of the
mountains, visited in 1874. This last will be seen to em-

40 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

brace the entire States of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas,
and portions of Wyoming, Dakota, Minnesota, lowa,
Missouri, New Mexico, Indian Territory and Texas. The
green color indicates the area over which the greatest
injury was done ; the pink, the area which suffered less,
because more sparsely inhabited ; and the salmon, the area
which was more or less overrun by them. The map also
shows the eastern limit reached by the locusts. The insects
were doubtless equally numerous in the northwestern parts
of Wyoming and Dakota, and in Montana, for, in fact,
they breed there ; but the country is for the most part so
barren and so thinly settled that the reports were very
meagre. The loss to the States mentioned did not fall far
short of fifty millions of dollars. That much of the dam-
age resulted from the progeny of the swarms of 1873,
which, hatching in the country already indicated, as in-
vaded during that year, ravaged the crops of the country
where they hatched, and eventually spread to the south-
east, the records abundantly prove ; but there was like-
wise a fresh invasion direct from the mountain region,
which added to that of 1873, rendered the year 1874 so
memorable.

On account of the long continued drouth, and the ray-
ages of the chinch bug, but little green food was left in
Missouri and Kansas for the locusts to destroy. This,
however, they took. In most of the invaded counties of
Missouri, corn was already too hard to be damaged; but the
locusts stripped every green blade, and even the husks,
when not already killed by the chinch bug.

The general direction from which they came was from
the northwest, the reports showing remarkable agreement
in this respect. ‘The insects came nearly a month earlier
than they did in 1866. Kansas suffered, perhaps, most
severely.

Chronological History. 4]

Detailed accounts of this invasion, and of the destitution
and suffering which resulted therefrom in the different
States, will be found in the author’s Seventh Annual
Report on the Insects of Missouri. In that Report, in
endeavoring to forecast the probable injury the following
spring, in Missouri and adjoining country, I wrote as
follows :

Setting aside possible but not probable injury from a new inva-
sion, we may cunsider the probable injury that will result in 1875,
from the progeny of those which came in 1874. The eggs which
are deposited on southerly hill-sides often hatch before cold weather
sets in, if the fall be warm and protracted, while many hatch soon
after the frost is out of the ground in the spring. Yet the great
bulk of them will not hatch till into April. That most of the eggs
will hatch may be taken for granted unless we have very abnormal
climatic conditions, and unprecedentedly wet and cold weather
following a mild and thawing spell. The young issuing from
these eggs will, also, in all probability, do much damage, as they
did in the spring and summer of 1867. But the actual damage
can not be foretold, as so much depends oncircumstances. In 1867,
in many counties of Kansas and Missouri, where the ground had
been filled with eggs the previous fall, little harm was done in the
spring—so small a percentage of the eggs came to anything and so
unmercifully were the young destroyed by natural enemies. A
severe frost kills the young after they have hatched, where a mod-
erate frost does not affect them. * * * Following a rather
mild February the March of ’67 was a very severe one, the ther-
mometer frequently indicating 18 degrees below zero, and accord-
ing to Mr. W. F. Goble, of Pleasant Ridge, Kansas, who wrote an
excellent account of the insect, this severe weather caused many
of the eggs to perish ; and he expresses the opinion that ‘judging
from the voraciousness of those that did appear, I doubt not Kansas
would have been made a perfect desert if all had lived.”

If after the young hoppers hatch we have much cold wet
weather, great numbers of them will congregate in sheltered places
and perish before doing serious harm; but if, on the contrary, our
spring and early summer prove dry and hot (which is hardly to be
expected after the several dry seasons lately experienced) much
damage will result from these young locusts, where no effort is
made to prevent it. They will ruin most garden truck, do much
injury to grain, and affect plants very much in the order previously
indicated under the head of ‘‘ Food-plants.” They will become
more and more injurious as they get older, until, in about two
months from the time of hatching, or about the middle of June,
they will begin to acquire wings, become restless, and 1n all proba-
bility leave the locality where they were born, either wending
their way further south or returning in the direction whence their

42 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

parents came the previous year. Some bevies may even pass to
thé eastward of the limit line reached 1n 1874, and fall upon some
of the counties bordering that line; but they will lay no eggs, and
will, in time, run their course and perish from debility, disease and
parasites.

The verification of the above predictions the following
spring, was another proof of the soundness of the princi-
pal theories advanced in this work ; for while the injury
proved greater in many sections than was anticipated, yet

the occurrences, in the main, were accurately foreshadowed.

GENERAL OUTLOOK IN THE SPRING OF 1875.

The spring of 1875 brought the farmers of the locust
region to a crisis somewhat unusual and peculiar. Two
previous years of drouth and chinch bugs, followed by the
locust incursion of the previous fall, had armed the peo-
ple with unusual energy, born of hope and necessity, and
there was everywhere determination to put forth the very
best efforts. The opening of the spring favored the exe-
cution of this purpose. Timely rains and bright weather
crowned the seeding time with unusual hope, and a much
larger acreage of all spring crops was planted. The ex-
perience of previous locust years had been generally for-
gotten, and no effort to destroy the eggs had been made.
The same genial sun that made wheat, oats, corn and flax
grow apace, brought into activity myriads of the dreaded
destroyers. Scarcely had the farmer begun to rejoice over
a prospect of uncommon promise, when he saw his fields
invaded by an enemy that overcame his utmost resistance.
The severely stricken region, covering an area variously
estimated at from 200 to 270 miles from east to west, and
from 250 to 350 miles from north to south, and embracing
portions of Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, presented a
variety of experience, some portions being comparatively
exempt from injury, while others wore an aspect of devas-

Chronological History. 43,

tation that changed the verdure of spring into the barren-
ness of winter.

The tract in which the injury done by the destructive
enemy was worst, was confined to the two western tiers
of counties in Missouri, and the four tiers of counties in
Kansas, bounded by the Missouri river on the east. The
greatest damage extended over a strip 25 miles each side
of the Missouri river, from Omaha to Kansas City, and
then extending south to the southwestern limit of Mis-
souri. About three-quarters of a million of people were
to a greater or less extent made sufferers. The experience
of different localities was not equal or uniform. Con-
tiguous farms sometimes presented the contrast of abund-
ance and utter want, according to the caprices of the in-
vaders, or according as they hatched in localities favorable
to the laying of the eggs. This fact gave rise to contra-
_dictory reports, each particular locality generalizing from
its own experience. The fact is, however, that over the
_ region described there was a very general devastation, in-
volving the destruction of three-fourths of all field and
garden crops.

While the injury was greatest in the area defined above,
the insects hatched in more or less injurious numbers from
Texas to British America—the prevalence of the insects
in Manitoba being such that in many parts little or no
cultivation was attempted.

For the relief of the sufferers there came the frequent
and growing rains, carrying spring far into the usually
droughty summer, and giving the subsequent planting an
admirable start. Then when the pests had increased to
their highest number, and were working the most exten-
sive ruin, the flood gates of the clouds were opened, and
for thirty-six hours an unceasing torrent swept large num-
bers of them into the streams, until the surface of most

44 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

a

running water was black with locusts. For the destitu-
tion of Kansas an extra session of the Legislature pro-
vided partial reliet. In both Kansas and Missouri, wher-
ever the scourge extended, seeds were to some extent
distributed by the Department of Agriculture, and by
enterprising seedsmen, and committees were sent to more
favored regions to obtain contributions of money, pro-
visions and seed.

Karly in May the reports from the districts most severely
visited were very conflicting : the insects were confined
within short radii of their hatching grounds. The season
was propitious, and where the insects did not occur, every-
thing promised well. As the month drew more and more
to a close, the insects extended the area of destruction,
and the alarm became general. By the end of the month
the non-timbered portions of the country most affected
were as bare as in winter. Here and there patches of
Amarantus Blitum and a few jagged stalks of Milkweed
(Aselepias) served to relieve the monotony. An occasional —
oat field, or low piece of prairie would also remain green ;
but with these exceptions one might travel for days by
buggy and find everything eaten off, even to the under-
brush in the woods. The suffering was great and the
people were well-nigh disheartened. Cattle and stock of
all kinds, except hogs and poultry, were driven away to
more favored counties, and relief committees were organ-
ized. Many families left the country under the influence
of the temporary panic and the unnecessary forebodings
and exaggerated statements of pessimists. Chronic loafers
and idlers even made some trouble and threatened to seize
the goods and property of the well-to-do. Relief work
was, however, carried on energetically, and with few ex-
ceptions no violence occurred. Early in June the insects
began to leave ; the farmers began replanting with a will.

Chronological History. . 45

As the month advanced, the prospects brightened, and by
the Fourth of July the whole country again presented a
green and thrifty appearance.

The immediate damage was the loss of labor expended
in planting, and the seeding for about two-thirds of the
crop acreage of the country, to which may be added the
destruction of the fruit and the tame grasses. Detailed
returns of the damage done in Missouri, showed a loss of
over fifteen millions of dollars. The amount of loss re-
deemed by crops that succeeded after the insects left, it
was impossible to determine ; but the amount was offset by
the injury both temporary and permanent, to fruit, fruit
trees, vineyards, gardens, meadows and pastures ; by the
fact that such crops as flax, castor-beans, etc., were not
estimated in the calculation ; and lastly, by the injury to
stock, as the animals were necessarily driven out of the
country, and by the general depreciation of property.

Missouri had never before been visited by a calamity so
appalling, and so disastrous in its results, as the locust
ravages of 1875. Other years have brought drought,
chinch bugs, and partial or total failure of particular
crops, but no event ever before so completely prostrated
the country within which the ravages occurred. The sud-
denness and desolating power with which the attack came,
where often the possessor of promising crops deemed them
safe, acted as a paralysis upon those very faculties that are
engaged in the forethought and deliberation necessary to
self-preservation or concerted action. The farmer saw his
green acres smiling with glorious hope to-day, and to-
morrow, perhaps, all barren and bleak as in winter. It is
no wonder that many communities were panic-stricken.
Previous disaster had already brought many sections to a
critical and suffering point, so that even during the winter
the Legislature was appealed to for aid. Stock had been

46 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

dying ; feed of all kinds was scarce, and whole communi-
ties were relying on the promise of the spring. For this
reason the locust ravages were all the more desolating and
discouraging.

Some cases of actual starvation were reported in the
papers, but I was unable to learn of a single instance which
could be authenticated by the names of the suffering
parties. Replies to the question, ‘‘ Did any cases of actual
destitution or starvation positively occur in your county ?”
from over a hundred correspondents in the counties in
Missouri which suffered most, with scarcely an exception
were to the effect that while there was great destitution
no cases of starvation occurred.

The great exodus of the flying swarms from our borders
began early in June, and reached its acme about the mid-
dle of the month. Some were leaving up to the last week
in the month. The cheering news “they fly, they fly,”
was wired over the country from Coffeyville, Kansas, on
the 29th of May, and a few days later these same words
that cheered the waning spirit of General Wolfe as he saw
that victory remained with England, and Canada was lost
to France, passed along the lines from our western coun-
ties, and gladdened the hearts and revived the dying
hopes of the suffering farmers. _

I had such confidence in the correctness of the theories
which I have advanced, that, in addressing the farmers of
Missouri, during the spring when they were most disheart-
ened, and while the consternation was greatest, I did not
hesitate to assure them that their troubles were temporary;
that the insects would leave in time to permit the growth
of good crops of most of the products of the soil. Obliged
to sail for Europe in June, I told them that I should return
in the fall to find them jubilant where then they were dis-
couraged. I came back in September. The desolation of

Chronological History. 47

June had been followed by a luxuriance of vegetation
without parallel. The change wrought in three months
was magical ; and as I addressed them again in the midst
of plenty, the farmers felt thankful for the confidence and
encouragement they had received in such different circum-
stances, three months before.

DESTINATION OF THE DEPARTING SWARMS OF 18%.

That the insects which left the Mississippi Valley in
1875 reached into British America there is abundant proof.
The Winnipeg Standard of August 19, 1876, as quoted
by Professor Whitman, says :

The locusts which hatched in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska
[in 1875], in an area of 250 miles from east to west, and 300 miles
from north to south, took flight in June, and invariably went north-
west, and fell in innumerable swarms upon the regions of British
America, adjoining Forts Pelly, Carlton and Ellice, covering an
area as large as that they vacated on the Missouri River. They
were reinforced by the retiring column from Manitoba, and it
seemed to be hoping against hope that the new swarms of 1876
would not again descend upon the settlements in the Red River
Valley. Intelligence was received here that the insects took flight
from the vicinity of Fort Pelly on the 10th of July, and then fol-
lowed a fortnight of intense suspense. .

Professor G. M. Dawson, of Montreal, wrote me: “ You
may be interested in knowing that the northward flying
swarms in 1875 penetrated a considerable distance into the
region west of Manitoba, while most of the insects hatch-
ing in the latter province went southeastward when
winged, and that large numbers got at least as far east as
the Lake of the Woods.” In an interesting paper in the
Canadian Naturalist, on the ‘‘ Appearance and Migrations
of the Locusts in Manitoba and the N. W. Territories in
the Summer of 1875,” Professor Dawson further gives
many other valuable records, some of which, as bearing on
the question under consideration, I quote entire, as they
will hardly bear condensing.

48 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

From the reports now received from Manitoba and various por-
tions of the Northwest Territory, and published in abstract with
these notes, it would appear that during the summer of 1875 two
distinct elements were concerned in the locust manifestation.
First, the insects hatching in the province of Manitoba and sur-
rounding regions, from eggs left by the western and northwestern
invading swarms of the previous autumn; second, a distinct
foreign host, moving, for the most part, from south to north. The
locusts are known to have hatched in great numbers over almost the
entire area of Manitoba, and westward at least as far as Fort Ellice
on the Assiniboine river (long. 101° 20'), and may probably have
been produced, at least sporadically, in other portions of the cen-
tral regions of the plains; though in the summer of 1874, this
district was nearly emptied to recruit the swarms devastating Mani-
toba and the Western States, and there appears to have been little
if any influx to supply their place. Still further west, on the
plains along the base of the Rocky Mountains, from the 49th
parallel to the Red Deer river, locusts are known to have hatched
in considerable numbers—but of these more anon.

Hatching began in Manitoba and adjacent regions in favorable
localities as early as May 7th, but does not seem to have become
general till about the 15th of the month, and to have continued
during the latter part of May and tillthe 15th of June. * * *

The destruction of crops by the growing insects, in all the
settled regions was very great, and in many districts well nigh
complete. The exodus of these broods began in the early part of
July, but appears to have been most general during the middle and
latter part of that month, and first of August. The direction taken
on departure was, with very little exception, southeast or south.
It is to be remarked, that as there does not seem to have been dur-
ing this period any remarkable persistency of northwest or westerly
winds, the insects must have selected those favoring their intended
direction of migration, an instinct which has very generally been
observed elsewhere.

* * * * * *

Foreign swarms from the south crossed the 49th parallel with a
wide front stretching from the 98th to the 108th meridian, and are
quite distinguishable from those produced in the country, from the
fact that many of them arrived before the latter were mature.
These flights constituted the extreme northern part of the army
returning northward and northwestward from the States ravaged in
the autumn of 1874. They appeared at Fort Ellice on the 13th
of June, and at Qu’ Appelle Fort on the 17th of the same month,
favored much no doubt by the steady south and southeast winds,
which, according to the meteorological register at Winnipeg, pre-
vailed on the 12th of June and for about a week thereafter. After
their first appearance, however, their subsequent progress seems to
have been comparatively slow, and their advancing border very

irregular in outline. They are said to have reached Swan Lake ©

House—the most northern point to which they are known to have
attained—about July 10th; while Fort Pelly, further west, and

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Chronological History. 49

nearly a degree further south, was reached July 20th, and about
seven days were occupied in the journey from there to Swan River
Barracks, a distance of only ten miles.

It is thus obvious not only that vast swarms reached
into British America in 1875, from our own country, but
that the young hatched there from swarms that had come
the previous year from the farther Northwest.

There was, therefore, north of the 49th parallel, a repe-
tition of the devastation we were at the time experienc-

ing in the States ; the insects hatching there in bulk just
about the time they were leaving Texas on the wing. In
these facts we get an explanation of

THE INVASION OF 1876.

In opposition to contrary opinion widely circulated, I expressed
my belief, a year ago, that in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, first,
there would not hatch as many locusts in the spring as would natu-
tally hatch in ordinary seasons from indigenous species ; second,
that, compared with other partsof the country, those States most
ravaged by locusts in the spring and early summer of 1875 would
enjoy the greater immunity, during the same season of 1876, not
only from locust injuries, but from the injuries of most other nox-
ious insects ; that, in short, the people of the ravaged section had

‘reason to be hopeful rather than gloomy; that they certainly would
not suffer in any general way from locust injuries in the early
Season ; and that the only way in which they could suffer from the
Migrating pest was by fresh swarms, later in the year, from the far

_Northwest.—Mo. Ent. Rep. 8, 155-6.

Like the other opinions as to the future doings of this
insect that I had felt warranted in expressing in an unqual-
ified way, this last was fully justified by subsequent events.
From most of the so-called Western States the crop
returns were favorable, though the harvest was in many
sections impeded, as it was in 1875, by too much wet
weather. In no part of the country was the outlook more
flattering than in Western Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska,

_ lowa, and the country so seriously ravaged by locusts the
previous year, and the farmers throughout that section of

country had seldom been freer from insect ravages, or
4

50 The Rocky Mountain Loeust.

more hopeful. The freedom from other noxious insects
was everywhere apparent. In parts of the Northwest, as |
in the East, the conditions were very different from what —
they were in the Mississippi Valley, and the crops suffered
more or less from excessive drouth. In Colorado there
was some alarm, as the insects hatched in many localities,
but by no means so generally as in the previous years.
By persevering effort the farmers generally got the mas-
tery over them and made good crops. In Minnesota,
again, in some of the southern counties, where eggs were
laid, considerable damage was done, though not nearly so
much as in 1875. During the second week of July the
locusts took wing from that region, and it is interesting to
note that they instinctively took a north and northwest
course, just as in the previous year the fledged insects had
done a few weeks earlier in the season from Missouri and
the adjacent country to the west. Numerous dispatches
to St. Paul, Minneapolis, and other papers, show conclu-
sively that the general direction taken was northwest,
and that when the wind was unfavorable the insects
awaited a change.

Such was the condition of things up to the early part of
August, and I began to hope that the country that had
suffered so much of late years by locust devastations, was
at last free from the scourge, and would not be overrun
again for some years to come. But the great drouth which
prevailed in the Northwest appears to have favored the
hatching and development of the insects in that section ;
and no sooner had our people begun to congratulate them-
selves on the departure of the pests, than reports came of
the movement of new swarms from the north and north-
west. From that time on, till the approach of winter,
their movements were constantly reported and they even-
tually overswept a large part of the Western country.

Chronological History. 51

A detailed record of this invasion published in the 9th
Mo. Entomological Report, makes it manifest that the
locusts that hatched and did more or less damage in
Minnesota early in the year, endeavored to get away to the
northwest as soon as they acquired wings. They were
subsequently repulsed and borne back again by the winds
to their hatching places; thence south and southwest into
Iowa and Nebraska. As they rise and fly from day to day
they concentrate and condense, since in passing over a
given area during the hotter parts of the day new acces-
sions are constantly being made to the flying hosts which,
with serried ranks, descend in the afternoon. Thus, in
returning, the swarms were thicker and more destructive in
places than they were in leaving. Yet the column which
thus came back to Minnesota and passed to the south and
southwest was more straggling than in 1874, and by the
middle of the month it had spent its force and left eggs
throughout most of the country traversed. Had the
invasion consisted of these alone, the damage would have
been but slight, and the insects would hardly have reached
into Kansas. Their eggs, laid in August, were far more
liable to injury and to premature hatching than those laid
later. But fresh swarms that hatched in Dakota, and
farther northwest, followed on the heels of the Minnesota
swarms, passing over much of the same country to the
east and southward into Colorado, and eventually over-
running the larger part of Nebraska and Kansas, the
western half of Iowa and some of the western counties
in Missouri, and reaching into Indian Territory, Texas, and
parts of Arkansas.

The extent of the region invaded will appear by referring
to the map (Plate III). Coming generally later than in
1874, they did less damage, and the farmers were in so
much better condition to withstand injury, that it was

52 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

much less felt. In most sections visited, part of the
migrating hosts remained to lay eggs; and the invasion

of 1876 is remarkable, as compared with that of.1874, for |
the large extent of country supplied with eggs. Another >
fact is noticeable, viz., that the very parts of Minnesota in
which eggs were laid in 1875, and the portions of Missouri —
and Kansas in which they were most thickly laid in 1°74, —

escaped in 1876. I can not believe, however, that this is —

anything more than coincidence. |
A careful review of the invasion, shows that it was made
up, Ist, of such insects as hatched out in Southwestern

Minnesota, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Dakota; —
2nd, of additions to these from Montana and British |

America. To what extent those in either of these cate- |

gories were made up of the progeny from the insects that
left our country in 1875 we shall never be able accurately
to determine. The proportion of parasitized and diseased
. insects that left Missouri, doubtless became less among

those which hatched and rose from the farther north and |

west, and we may, I think, take it for granted that the

larger part of the swarms that reached Montana and |

British America, laid eggs. In addition to the vast swarms |
which invaded the Northwest from the south and southeast, |
there were in 1875, as Prof. Dawson shows, others that |

hatched in the Northwest, pouring from British America |

into our Northwest territory. There were, in fact, in
Manitoba and large parts of the Northwest, two grand |

opposing movements of the winged insects, which thus to
some extent replaced each other and coalesced about our
northern boundary. Bearing this in mind, we can under-
stand the increased area in the Northwest over which eggs

were laid that year, and from which the 1876 swarms had |

their source. As no eggs were laid in Manitoba, while the
young are known to have abounded in the mountain region

Chronological Fistory D3

to the west of that province, it is more than probable that
the principal source of the 1876 invasion was Montana
and the Saskatchawan and Swan River countries. The
question as to how far the Northwest breeding grounds are
recruited, by the insects which hatch in the more fertile
country which I have designated as outside the species’
natural habitat, is a most interesting one; for if thus
recruited, there is all the greater incentive for us to exter-
minate the young insects which hatch with us. All such
questions can be settled, if at all, only by a thorough
study of the subject by a properly constituted commission,
such as that now charged with the work, under the Depart-
ment of the Interior.

EASTERN LINE REACHED.

A study of the eastern limit of the invasion of 1876,
compared with that of 1874, shows that it is peculiar in
reaching farther east in Minnesota and Iowa, and farther.
south and east in Texas. The limit-line—extending from
Clay county, Minnesota ; bulging toward St. Paul, reach-
ing southwardly to the center of Iowa; thence westwardly
receding to Lawrence, Kansas, and bulging again to South-
‘west Missouri—is more irregular between the 36th and
46th parallels than it was in 1874. On an average, how-
ever, it does not extend east of the 94th meridian.

THE OMAHA CONFERENCE.

As an incident of the 1876 invasion, the Conference of
the Executives of those States and Territories which most
suffer from locust ravages, and of scientific gentlemen
interested in the subject, held at Omaha, Neb., on the
25th and 26th of October, is worthy of mention. The
following gentlemen, with the writer, were in attendance:
Prof. Cyrus Thomas, of Illinois; Gov. Sam’] J. Kirkwood,

54 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

of lowa; Gov. Thomas A. Osborne, of Kansas; Gov.
Silas Garber, Ex-Gov. Robert W. Furnas, Prof. C. D.
Wilber, Prof. A. D. Williams, and Hon. Geo. W. Frost, |
of Nebraska ; Gov. John S. Pillsbury, Pennock Pusey,
and Prof. A. Whitman, of Minnesota; Gov. John L. Pen- |
nington, of Dakota; and Gov. C. H. Hardin, of Missouri. |

The Conference was called at the invitation of Gov. |
Pillsbury, in the hope of obtaining concert of action in
the best means of meeting or averting the evil. After a_
two-days’ session, and an instructive interchange of expe-
riences and opinions, and the passage of a series of resolu-
tions, a committee consisting of John S. Pillsbury, Pen-
nock Pusey, and myself, was appointed to prepare for |
publication the official report of Proceedings, together |
with asummary of the best means known for counteracting
the evil; and 10,000 copies of a pamphlet of 72 pages |
were accordingly published last fall. By being widely |
distributed, this pamphlet has undoubtedly done much |
good, and has also had no small share in bringing about |
certain much needed State and National legislation.

CHAPTER III.

NATIVE HOME AND GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE OF
THE SPECIES EAST OF THE MOUNTAINS.

SOURCE OF THE DEVASTATING SWARMS THAT REACH INTO
THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

THERE is some difference of opinion as to the precise
natural habitat and breeding place ot the Rocky Moun-
tain Locust, but the facts all indicate that it is by nature
a denizen of high altitudes, breeding in the valleys, parks
and plateaus of the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado,
and especially of Montana, Wyoming and British America.
Prof. Cyrus Thomas, who, through his connection with
Hayden’s geological survey of the-Territories, has had an
excellent opportunity of studying it, reports it as occurring
from Texas to British America and from the Mississippi
(more correctly speaking, the line I have indicated) west-
ward to the Sierra Nevada range. But in all this vast
extent of country, and especially in the more southern
latitudes, there is every reason to believe that it breeds
continually only on the higher mountain elevations, where
the amosphere is dry and attenuated, and the soil sel-
dom gets soaked with moisture. Prof. Thomas found it
most numerous in all stages of growth along the higher
valleys and canyons of Colorado, tracing it up above the
perennial snows, where the insect must have hatched, as it

was found in the adolescent stage. In crossing the moun-
(55)

56 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

tains in Colorado it often gets chilled in passing the snows,
and thus perishes in immense numbers. The bears of this
locality desire no better condiment wherewith to season
their usual repasts. |

My own belief is that the insect is at home in the higher ©
altitudes of Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana,
Northwestern Dakota, and British America. It breeds in
all this region, but particularly on the vast hot and dry
plains and plateaus of the last named Territories and on
the plains west of the mountains; its range on the east
being bounded, perhaps, by that of the buffalo grass. Mr.
Wm. N. Byers, of Denver, Colorado, shows that the
insects hatch in immense quantities in the valleys of the
three forks of the Missouri river and along the Yellow-
stone, and that, when fledged, they move on from there
in a southeast direction at about the rate of 10 miles per
day. The swarms of 1867 were traced, as he states, from
their hatching grounds in West Dakota and Montana,
along the east flank of the Rocky Mountains, into the
valleys and plains of the Black Hills, and between them
and the main Rocky Mountain range.*

In all this immense stretch of country, as is well known,
there are extensive tracts of barren, almost desert land,
while other tracts for hundreds of miles bear only a scanty
vegetation ; the short buffalo grass of the more fertile
prairies giving way, now toa more luxurious vegetation
along the water courses, now to the sage bush and a few
cacti. Another physical peculiarity is found in the fact
that not only does the spring on these immense plains some-
times open as early, even away up into British America, as
it does in Chicago, or exceptionally even in St. Louis, but
the vegetation is often dried and actually burned out

* See Hayden’s Geol. and Geogr. Survey of the Territories, 187), pp. 282-3.

~~
ED |

flome, and Range Hast of Mountains.

in the early part of July, so that not a green thing is to be
found. Our Rocky Mountain Locust, therefore, hatching
out in untold myriads in the hot plains, five or six thou-
sand feet above the sea level, will often perish in immense
numbers if the scant vegetation of its native home dries
up before it acquires wings; but if the season is propitious
and the insect becomes fledged before its food supply is
exhausted, the newly acquired wings prove its salvation.
It may also become periodically so prodigiously multiplied
in its native breeding places that, even in favorable
seasons, everything green is devoured by the time it be-
comes winged.

In either case, prompted by that most exigent law of
hunger—spurred on for very life—it rises in immense
clouds in the air to seek for fresh pastures where it may
stay its ravenous appetite. Borne along by the prevailing
winds that sweep over these immense treeless plains from
the northwest, often at the rate of fifty or sixty miles an
hour, the darkening locust clouds are soon carried into the
more moist and fertile country to the southeast, where with
sharpened appetites, they fall upon the crops like a plague
and a blight. Many of the more feeble or of the more
recently fledged perish, no doubt, on the way; but the
main army succeeds, with favorable wind, in bridging over
the parched country which offers no nourishment. The
hotter and drier the season, and the greater the extent of
the drouth, the edrlier will they be prompted to migrate,
and the farther will they push on to the east and south.

My late friend, Benj. D. Walsh, was of the opinion that
the swarms which pour down upon the Mississippi Valley
come from the mountain regions of Colorado. My own
belief, first announced in 1874, that they originate in the
Northwest, has been very strongly confirmed by subsequent
events ; and however much some of the Western States

58 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

may suffer from swarms from the mountain regions farther
south, it seems quite certain that the extensive and disas-
trous swarms which come late in summer and fall, and
which reach as far east as Missouri, have their origin in the
vast plains regions of the Northwest lying east of the
mountains, in Montana, Dakota, and the Saskatchawan
and Red River countries of British America.* Some wri-
ters find it difficult to believe that the insect can fly over
such immense distances, and they believe that the swarms
originate (as Mr. S. H. Scudder, of Cambridge, puts it),
‘in the immediate vicinity of the regions which they
devastate.”

Such language is not very definite, since much of the
country devastated must be in the immediate vicinity of |
the hot, dry plains and plateaus in which I believe the
Species is more particularly at home. The swarms that
occasionally, during summer, devastate the country in
which the species is not indigenous, must necessarily be
the progeny of insects developed at no great distance
from the sections they invade, whether they come from
Minnesota southward, from Colorado eastward, or from
Texas northward ; and I endeavored to draw the distinc-
tion in 1874 between these summer swarms and the more
disastrous fall swarms. On this point the Minnesota
commission remarks (Special Rep. to Gov. Davis, p. 25) :

It is plainthat locusts hatched in Colorado and regions to the
south and southwest of Minnesota, acquire wihgs in time to allow
them to reach this State in the former half of June. Thisis shown
by the time when the invasion occurred in 1873, and by the immense
flights of locusts which passed over Nebraska and Dakota to the
northward in June, 1875. Itseems to be a common impression that
the locusts which have invaded Minnesota at other times were
hatched in Montana, Northwestern Dakota and British America,
and this is rendered probable by what few facts we know, and by

* The origin of the swarms that devastate the Pacific slope is probably in
the similar high plains regions of Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

Home, and Range Hast of Mountains. 59

the time and direction from which they came. These attacks are
all represented as coming from the west, north or northwest, and
reached the Red River Settlement in the last week of July, 1818,
the Upper Mississippi about the same time in 1856, the western line
of the State in the former half of July, 1864, and on July 15th,
1874. In the last three cases the invasions did not reach their
farthest limit until a considerable portion of the crops had been
harvested.

If Mr. Scudder means that the hordes that in August
and September occasionally overrun the whole territory
which I have indicated as outside the insect’s natural
habitat, originate within or upon the borders of that terri-
tory—the country south of the 44th parallel and east of
the 100th meridian—then the facts are entirely against his
supposition. The late swarms of 1874 and 1876, are known
to have traveled from five hundred to six hundred miles
after having reached the more thickly settled country.
Late appearance and late egg-laying imply late hatching,
which, in the main, must needs have taken place in north-
erly or sub-alpine regions. The invasion of the northern
regions of Minnesota,. Dakota, Montana and Manitoba,
from the still farther northwest, also makes it clear that
the insects come from beyond. The theory of short
flights and development, in the immediate vicinity of the
country devastated, will not answer for the late disastrous
and general irruptions like those of 1866, 1874 and 1876 ;
and in discussing this question the difference between
these irruptions and the earlier, more frequent and less
disastrous ones, should always be borne in mind.

The species, as defined in this work, and as it swoops
down from the mountain region, does not, as some claim,
occur every year in Missouri, Texas, Kansas, or any of the
country to which I have indicated it is not indigenous.
It occurs there only as the dwindling progeny of the
swarms from the west or northwest, and never becomes
acclimated. I have traveled through Iowa, and from

60 The Rocky. Mountain Locust.

Omaha to Denver, collecting plants and capturing insects
along the route on every occasion ; I have traveled exten-
sively in Kansas, Indian Territory and Texas, always
collecting ; I have been overwhelmed in the latter State
with swarms of locusts while in front of an engine, and
yet, among all the locusts collected, I have never found
the genuine spretus, except as it came from the west or
northwest, or hatched from eggs laid by those which had
thence come. It can not be found there any more than it
can be found in the western counties of Missouri, except.
as the progeny of invading swarms. There is no instance
on record of the species, when hatching out in any of this
country, remaining long enough to lay eggs, even suppos-
ing it capable of doing so. in such circumstances. We
find it multiplying continuously west and north of the
boundary indicated ; pushing annually, in detachments,
eastward from the mountains to the west, and southeast-
ward from the country to the northwest; but only at long
intervals does it sweep down in countless myriads and in
extended and devastating swarms from the extreme north-
west. Just beyond the confines of the country in which
it permanently multiplies, it follows that it will more
often do injury than farther east and south ; it will also
hold its own longer, but sooner or later it vanishes from
the country beyond those confines. It either vacates the
territory on the wing, or is destroyed by influences adverse
to its well-being.

In placing these confines along the 44th parallel and the
100th meridian, I think I have given the utmost southern
and eastern limits. It is even doubtful whether the-spe-
cies permanently multiplies in much of the country for
some degrees north and west of the territory thus indi-
cated. Prof. Thomas indicates the eastern boundary as
along the 103rd meridian, while Mr. G. M. Dawson, in the

Home, and Range Hast of Mountains. 61
pamphlet already referred to, says that ‘north of the
49th parallel, the whole area of the third or highest
prairie-plateau, and probably much of the second, are
congenial breeding places, and here the locusts are always
in greater or less numbers.” Regarding the western
boundary, nothing struck Prof. Thomas* as more singular
than the few specimens of spretus collected west of the
mountain range by the Hayden Geological Survey, from
which he infers that the line of the survey was along the
southwest border of its district. Mr. J. D. Putnam, of
Davenport, lowa, who spent July, August and September
of 1875, in Utah, also informs me that he did not meet
with a single specimen.

That the native home of the species is what naturalists
understand as sub-alpine, is rendered pretty certain, also,
by the fact of its abounding to such an extent in British
America, and of its breeding in the higher mountain ele-
vations, even up to the perennial snows. In fact, so high
up does it breed that it often hatches so late in the season
as to be overtaken by the cold of the succeeding winter
before acquiring growth, when of course it perishes with-
out begetting. The truly alpine country can not, therefore,
be its native home; and those found breeding at such a
height must be the progeny of others which flew from the
plains, either east or west of the mountains. Physical
barriers on the high mountain summits put a limit to the
insect’s extension and propagation, just as they do in the
Mississippi Valley.

* Preface to his Report upon the Collections of Orthoptera made in Nevada,
Utah, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, in 1871, 1872, 1873, and
1874, by Hayden’s Geol. Surv. of the Terr. (1876).

62 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

IT CAN NOT PERMANENTLY THRIVE OR PERPETUATE ITSELF
IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

The comparatively sudden change from the attenuated
and dry atmosphere of five to eight thousand feet or more
above the sea level, to the more humid and dense atmos-
phere of one thousand feet above that level, does not
agree with the species. The first generation hatched in this
low country is more or less unhealthy, and those that attain
maturity do not breed, but quit the country. At least such
is the case in the whole of the Mississippi Valley proper.
As we go west or northwest and approach nearer and
nearer the insect’s native home, the power to propagate
itself and become localized, becomes, of course, greater
and greater, until at last we reac . the country where it is
found perpetually. Thus in the western parts of Kansas
and Nebraska, in parts of Colorado and Minnesota, in fact,
in all the region indicated by the pink color in Plate I, the
progeny from the mountain swarms may multiply to the
second or even third generation, and wing their way in
more local and feeble bevies to the country east and south.
Yet eventually they vanish from that region and perish,
unless fortunate enough to be carried back by favorable
winds to the higher country where they flourish. There
is nothing more certain than that the insect is not autoch-
thonous in Texas, West Arkansas, Indian Territory, West
Missouri, Kansas, Western Iowa, Nebraska, or even Min-
nesota ; and whenever it overruns any of those States it
sooner or later abandons them. The same also is true of
parts of Colorado, Montana, Dakota, and even of Manitoba.

THE CONDITIONS WHICH PREVENT THE PERMANENT SETTLE-
MENT OF THE SPECIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

The conditions which determine the geographical limits
in which a species can exist, are often complex, and it is

Home. and Range East of Mountains. 63

not generally easy to say precisely what they are. Assum-
ing that I have correctly placed the native home of the spe-
cies in the higher, treeless and scarcely habitable plains of
the Rocky Mountain region of the Northwest, and that it
is sub-alpine, we may perhaps find, in addition to the com-
paratively sudden change from an attenuated and dry to
a more dense and humid atmosphere, another tangible
barrier to its permanent multiplication in the more fertile
country to the southeast, in the lengthened summer season.
As with annual plants, so with insects (like this locust)
which produce but one generation annually and whose
active existence is bounded by the spring and autumn
frosts—the duration of active life is proportioned to the
length of the growing season. Hatching late and develop-
ing quickly in its native haunts, our Rocky Mountain
Locust when born within our borders (and the same
will apply in degree to all the country where it is not
autochthonous), is in the condition of an annual north-
ern plant sown in more southern climes ; and just as this
attains precocious maturity and deteriorates for want of
autumn’s ripening influences, so our locust must in such
circumstances deteriorate. If those which acquired wings
in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, etc., early in June of 1875, had
‘staid long enough to lay eggs, supposing them capable of
doing so, these eggs .would inevitably have hatched prema-
turely, and the progeny must in consequence have perished.
There would have been no time for a second generation to
mature: such a second generation would have been cut off
by winter’s frosts without perpetuating.

Being a firm believer in change by modification in what
we call species, and that climatic conditions play a most
important part in causing this change, and that they act
more rapidly with lower animals than most evolutionists
grant, the idea has been very strong in my mind that the

64 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

species might become profoundly modified in the direction
of Atlanis in the course of two or three generations in
the country to the southeast, and that in this way and
through miscegenation with our native species, its extinc-
tion from our territory might also be accounted for. The
same possibility has also been suggested by Prof. Thomas—
a professed anti-Darwinian—in an elaborate paper pub-
lished in October, 1875, in the Chicago Jnter- Ocean, and,
as bearing on this point, I will state that the specimens
which hatched in and left the western counties of Missouri
in 1875, were, on an average, somewhat darker and smaller
than their parents. But after fully digesting all the facts,
I am convinced that these influences play a very unimpor-
tant part, if any; and that they can not be considered as
factors in the problem. All that could get away from the
regions of Texas, Missouri, Kansas, lowa and Nebraska
ravaged in 1875, did so; andif I may judge from expe-
rience in Missouri, those that could not, perished, so that
in the fall not a remnant of the army was leit.

But whatever the causes, the fact of debility, disease
and deterioration in, as well as migration from, the more
fertile southeastern country which the species occasionally
devastates, stands forth clearly and can not be gainsaid.
The following observations from careful observers may
be placed on record here :

Mr. Riley is of the opinion that the grasshoppers run out ina
few generations after they leave their native sandy and gravelly
soil. My experiments so far as they go, verify that opinion. For
several years I have caught grasshoppers during early summer that
came fresh from the direction of the mountains, and by attaching
their legs with fine silk threads to a small spring balance, found
that their physical strength was from twenty-five to fifty per cent.
greater than that of grasshoppers treated the same way that were
hatched in Nebraska or in States further eastward or northward.
The same result was reached by caging them, and ascertaining how
long they would live without food, and also by vivisection. In some
places, also, the eggs that were laid in different years since 1864 did

ton

Home, and Range East of Mountains. 65

not hatch out. The changes from extreme wet to dry, and from
cold to hot weather, or some other unknown causes, seem to sap
their constitutional vigor. Were it not for this, long ere now these
grasshoppers would, from their enormous numbers, have desolated
the whole country as far east as the Atlantic.—[Prof. Sam’] Aughey,
of the University of Nebraska, in the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal.

I have observed hundreds of winged locusts fall to the ground
during flight, either already dead or soon dying. These upon exam-
ination have generally proved to contain no parasites, and I judge
that their death was in consequence of impaired strength, this
second generation raised in an unnatural climate not equaling in
vitality the first generation, and succumbing to the fatigue conse-
quent upon extended flight—[Prof. F. H. Snow, of Kansas State
University, in Observer of Nature.

IT WILL NEVER DO SERIOUS HARM EAST OF THE NINETY-

FOURTH MERIDIAN.

A full month before a single specimen of the Rocky
Mountain Locust reached Missouri in 1874, I predicted
that it would come into the western counties too late to do
any very serious damage, and that it would not reach
beyond a given line. To the many anxious correspondents
who, fearing that the State was to be overrun, as Kansas
was being overrun, wrote for my opinion and advice, I
replied: “‘ Judging of the future by the past, the farmers
of Missouri, east of the extreme western tier of counties,
need fear nothing from locust invasions. They may plant
their fall grain without hesitation, and console themselves
with the reflection that they are secure from the unwel-
come visitants which occasionally make their way into the
counties mentioned, especially into those of the northwest
corner of the State. The same holds true of the farmers
of Illinois and of all the country east of a line drawn at a
rough estimate, along longitude 17° west from Washing-
99

This prediction was fully borne out by subsequent events,
and I have ever insisted that east of the line indicated
there is no danger from this locust.

5

66 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

But, it will be asked, “‘ Upon what do you base this con-
clusion, and what security have we, that at some future
time the country east of the line you have indicated may
not be ravaged by these plagues from the mountains?” I
answer, that during the whole history of the species as I
have attempted to trace it in the chronological account
already given, the insect never has done any damage east
of the line indicated, and there 1s no reason to suppose
that 1t ever will do so for the future. There must of course
be some limit to its flight, as no one would be foolish
enough to argue that it could, in one season, fly to Eng-
land or France, or even to the Atlantic ocean ; and as its
flight is by law limited to one season—for the term of life
allotted to it is bounded by the spring and autumn frosts—
so 1ts power of flight is limited. And as the historical |
record proves that it never has done any damage east of |
the line indicated, it is but logical to infer that it never
will, so long as the present conditions of climate and the |
present configuration of the continent endure. It is an
interesting fact that whether on the Gulf of Mexico or in
British America the eastern limit-line is approximately the
same.

‘‘ But why,” it will again be asked, ‘‘ will not the young
from the eggs laid along the eastern limit you have indi-
cated, hatch and spread further to the eastward ?”’ Here,
again, historical record serves us, and there are, in addi-
tion, certain physical facts, which help to answer the
question. In Chapter V it is shown, that the young
insects do not reach, on an average, ten miles east of any |
point where they hatch, and that upon acquiring wings §j
they fly in the main northwestwardly. .

East of color-line indicated in Plate I, they did not reach
in a general way, either in 1874 or 1876, and beyond that |
line I do not believe they will ever do any damage. Not |

Home, and Range Hast of Mountains. 67

that they may not to some extent spread beyond that line,
in years to come, or that the young, hatching from invad-
ing swarms may not exceptionally push beyond it ; for I
have numerous records to show that the insects have
occurred as far as the western point of Lake Superior, and
that they have even reached the Mississippi in parts of
Towa : but in all such instances they appeared in scatter-
ing numbers only, and did no material damage. They
were the last remnants of the mighty armies from the
mountains, moving and blowing about, diseased, parasit-
ized, intestate and wasting away.

It is an interesting fact, as shown by the distribution of
timber in the United States, that this limit-line follows, in
the main, the separation of the timber from the plains and
prairie regions, or, more correctly speaking, the line which
separates that vast region between the Mississippi and the
mountains in which the timber averages not more than
Slx or seven out of every one hundred acres, and that in
which it averages twenty-five or thirty out of every one
hundred. In this fact we also get another probable ex-
planation of the eastern limit of injury by spretus.

Well is it for the people of the Mississippi Valley that
this insect can not go on multiplying indefinitely in their
fertile fields! Else, did it go on multiplying and thriving
as the Colorado Potato-beetle has done, this whole valley
would soon become a desert waste.

It will be a source of satisfaction to the farmers east of
the line indicated (however little it may be to those on
the westward side,) to feel assured against any future inva-
sion by, or any serious injury from, an army of insects so
prodigiously numerous as actually to obscure the light of
the sun, and so ruinously destructive as to devour almost
every green thing that grows !

CHAPTER IV.

NATURAL HISTORY AND TRANSFORMATIONS.
HOW THE EGGS ARE LAID.

Tur female, when about to lay her eggs, forces a hole
in the ground by means of the two pairs of horny valves
which open and shut at the tip of her abdomen, and
which, from their peculiar structure, are admirably fitted
for the pur-
\ pose. (See
wet De LEE WY Zp We ae ey
=a |i Yi - structure of
one of each
of the upper
and lower
valves). With
= the valves
a= closed she

=. pushes the

me tips into, the.

end broken open; c, afew eggs lying loose on the ground; d, e, ground, and
show the earth partially removed, to illustrate an egg-mass by a series

already in place, and one being placed; jf, shows where sucha
mass has been covered up. of muscular

eo
<> JY
<<

id.
SSS

HER

FAY
ZZ

D

is ff
pp

Dy

ad

efforts and the continued opening and shutting of the
valves, she drills a hole until in a few minutes (the time
varying with the nature of the soil) nearly the whole abdo-

men is buried. The abdomen stretches to its utmost for this
( 69)

70 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

purpose, especially at the middle, and the hole is generally
a little curved, and always more or less oblique (Fig. 6, @).
Now with hind legs hoisted straight above the back, and
the shanks hugging more or less closely the thighs, she
commences ovipositing. If we could manage to watch a
female during the arduous work of ovi- [ Fig. 7]
positing, we should find that, when the
hole is once drilled, there commences
to exude at the dorsal end of the abdo-
men, from a pair of sponge-like exser-
tile organs (Fig. 8, 2) that are normally

retracted and hidden beneath the super- Locust —Anal characters
anal plate (Fig. 8, 7), near the cerci, a valves. | ages
frothy, mucous matter, which fills up the bottom of the
hole. Then with the two pairs of valves brought close to-
gether, an egg would be seen to slide down the oviduct (/ )
along the ventral end of the abdomen, [ Fig. 8.]

and guided by a little finger-like style*
(7g) pass in between the horny valves
(which are admirably constructed, not
only for drilling, but for holding and con-
ducting the egg to its appropriate place)
and issue at their tips amid the mucous
fluid already spoken of. Then follows a
period of convulsions, during which more
mucous material is elaborated, until the ,
whole end of the body is bathed init, ~% ovreosrrion oF
when another egg passes down and is Locusr
placed in position. These alternate processes continue
until the full complement of eggs are in place, the number
ranging from 20 to 35, but averaging about 28. The mu-
cous matter binds all the eggs in a mass, and when the

*~ This is a simple process or extension of the sternite, and may be known as

. the egy-guide, or gubernaculum ovi.

Natural History and Transformations. 1

last is laid, the mother devotes some time to filling up the
somewhat narrower neck of the burrow with a compact
and cellulose mass of the same material, which, though
light and easily penetrated, is more or less impervious to
water, and forms a very excellent protection (Fig. 9, @).

PHILOSOPHY OF THE EGG-MASS.

To the casual observer, the eggs of our locust appear
to be thrust indiscriminately into the hole made for their
reception. A more careful study of the egg-mass or egg-
pod will show, however, that the female took great pains
to arrange them, not only so as to economize as much space
as possible consistent with the form of each egg, but so as
to best facilitate the escape of the young locust ; for if,
from whatever cause, the upper eggs should fail to hatch,
or should hatch later than the lower ones, the former would
offer an impediment to the exit of the young in their endeav-
ors to escape from these last, were there no provision against

| such a possibil-
ity. The eggs
are, indeed,most
carefully placed
side by side in
{ four rows, each
4 row generally
containing sev-

larged. crosswise of the
cylinder (Fig. 9, a). The posterior or narrow end, which
issues first from the oviduct, is thickened, and generally
shows two pale rings around the darker tip (Fig. 10, a).
This is pushed close against the bottom of the burrow,
which, being cylindrical, does not permit the outer or two

72 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

side rows to be pushed quite so far down as the two inner
rows, and for the very same reason the upper or head ends of
the outer rows are necessarily bent to the same extent over
the inner rows, the eggs when laid being somewhat soft
and plastic. There is, consequently, an irregular channel
along the top of the mass (Fig. 9, c), which is filled only
with the same frothy matter which surrounds each egg,
which matter occupies all the other space in the burrow
not occupied by the eggs. The whole plan is seen at once
by a reference to the accompanying figure, which represents,
enlarged, a side view of the mass within the burrow, (qa),
and a bottom (6) and top (c) view of the same, with the
earth which adheres to it removed.

DOES THE FEMALE FORM MORE THAN ONE EGG-MASS ?

Whether the female of our Rocky Mountain Locust lays
her full supply of eggs at once, and in one and the same
hole, or whether she forms several pods at different
periods, are questions often asked, but which have never
been fully and definitely answered in entomological works.
It is the rule with insects, particularly with the large
number of injurious species, belonging to the Lepidoptera,
that the eggs in the ovaries develop almost simultaneously,
and that when oviposition once commences, it is continued
uninterruptedly until the supply of eggs is exhausted.
Yet there are many notable exceptions to the rule among
injurious species, as in the cases of the common Plum
Curculio and the Colorado Potato-beetle, which oviposit
at stated or irregular intervals during several weeks, or
even months. The Rocky Mountain Tocust belongs to
this last category, and the most casual examination of the
ovaries in a female, taken in the act of ovipositing, will
show that besides the batch of fully formed eggs then and
there being laid, there are other sets, diminishing in size,

Natural History and Transformations. 73

which are to be laid at future periods. This, I repeat, can
be determined by any one who will take the trouble to
carefully examine a few females when laying. But just
how often, or how many eggs each one lays, is more dif_i-
cult to determine. With spretws I have been able to
make comparatively few experiments, but on three differ-
ent occasions I obtained two pods from single females,
laid at intervals of 18,21 and 26 days respectively. I
have, however, made extended experiments with its close
congeners, femur-rubrum and <Atlanis, and in two cases,
with the former, have obtained four different pods from one
female, the laying covering periods of 58 and 62 days, and
the total number of eggs laid being 96 in the one case
and 110 in the other. A number of both species laid
three times, but most of them—owing, perhaps, to their
being confined—laid but twice. They couple with the
male in the intervals of oviposition, and I have no doubt
but that, as in most other species of animals, there is great
difference in the degree of individual prolificacy. We may,
therefore, feel tolerably confident that the Rocky Mountain
Locust will sometimes form as many as four egg-pods.

The time required for drilling the hole and completing
the pod will vary according to the season and the temper-
ature. During the latter part of October, or early in No-
vember last year, when there was frost at night and the
insects did not rouse from their chilled inactivity until 9
o’clock a.., the females scarcely had time to complete the
process during the four or five warmer hours of the day ;
but with a higher temperature not more than from two
to three hours would be required.

HOW THE YOUNG LOCUST ESCAPES FROM THE EGG.

Carefully examined, the egg-shell is found to consist of
two layers. The outer layer which is thin, semi-opaque,

74 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

and gives the pale, cream-yellow color, is seen by aid of a
high magnifying power to be densely, minutely and shal-
lowly pitted; or, to
use still more exact
language, the whole
surface is netted with
minute and more or
less irregular, hexag-
onal ridges (Fig 10,
-z\a,b). It is a mere
=) covering of excreted
#/ matter, similar in na-

ture to the mucous
matter, already de-
scribed, which binds
the eggs together.
The inner layer (or
chorion) is thicker, of
a deeper yellow, and
perfectly smooth. It,

Eee oF Rocky MountvAIN Locust :—a, show- also, 1S translucent, so
ing sculpture of outer shell: 6, the same, very that. as the hatching
sack

highly magnified; c, the inner shell, just before

hatching; d, é, points where it ruptures. period approaches, the
form and members of the embryon may be distinctly dis-
cerned through it. The outer covering is easily ruptured,
and is rendered al! the more fragile by freezing ; but the
inner covering is so tough that a very strong pressure
between one’s thumb and finger is required to burst it.
How, then, will the embryon, which fills it so compactly
that there is scarcely room for motion, succeed in escaping
from such a prison? The rigid shell of the bird’s egg is
easily cracked by the beak of its tenant ; the hatching
caterpillar, curled within its egg-shell, has room enough
to move its jaws and eat its way out; the egg-coverings

[ Fig. 10.]

Natural History and Transformations. 5

of many insects are so delicate and frail that the mere
swelling of the embryon affords means of escape ; those
of others are so constructed that a door flies open, or a lid
lifts by a spring, whenever pressure is brought to bear :
in some, two halves open, as in the shell of a muscle ;
whilst in a host of others the embryon is furnished with a
special structure, called the egg-burster,* the office of
which is to cut or rupture the shell, and thus afford means
of escape. But our young locust is deprived of all such
contrivances, and must have another mode of exit from
its tough and sub-elastic prison. Nature accomplishes the
same end in many different ways. She is rich in contriy-
ances. The same warmth and moisture which promote
the development of the living embryon, also weaken the
inanimate shell, by a process analogous to decomposition,
and by a general expansion consequent upon the swelling
of the embryon within. Thus, the eggs when about to
hatch are much more plump and somewhat larger and
more transparent than they were when laid. At last, by
the muscular efforts of the nascent locust, and the swell-
ing of its several parts, especially about the head and
mouth, the shell gives way, generally splitting along the
anterior ventral part. The whole process may, in fact, be
likened to the germination of a hard-covered seed, when
planted in moist ground, and, precisely as in this latter
case, there is, in some loose soils, a certain heaving of the
ground, from the united swelling of the locust eggs. All
the eggs in a given mass burst very nearly at one and the
same time, and in that event the lowermost individuals
await the escape of those in front of them, which first
push their way out through the neck of the burrow (Fig.
9, d,) provided by the parent.

* I have elsewhere (Mo. Ent. Rep. 9, p. 127,) called this the Ruptor ovi,

76 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

They all escape, one after the other, through one small |
hole, which in the field is scarcely noticeable. Such isthe |
usual mode of hatching ; but when the young from the |
lower eggs hatch first, or when the upper eggs perish and |

leave the lower ones sound—as is not unfrequently the

case—the exit is nevertheless easily made along the chan- |

nel already described (Fig. 9, c).
Where there is the heat requisite to insure development,

but insufficient moisture to weaken the egg-shell, it is not

improbable that another agency comes into play to aid the
escape of the young.

Every one who has been troubled by it must have |

noticed that the shanks (tibi@) of our locust, as of all the
members of its family, are armed with spines. On the four

anterior legs, these spines are inside the shank; on the |
long posterior legs, outside. The spines of the hind |
shanks are strongest, and the terminal ones on all legs |
stronger than the rest. There can be no doubt that these |
spines serve to give a firm hold to the insect in walking |

or jumping; but they may have first served a more im-
portant prenatal purpose by partially peed the office
of egg-burster.

When fully formed, the embryon is seen to lie within its _

shell, as at Fig. 10, ¢. The antenne curve over the face
and between the jaws, which are early developed, and
which, with their sharp, black teeth, reach down to the
breast. The legs are folded up on the breast, the strong
terminal hooks on the hind shanks reaching toward the
mesosternum, or middle-breast. Ordinarily all these parts
are sheathed in the delicate pellicle (amnion) presently to
be described. But just in proportion as the hatching is
retarded for want of moisture, after the embryon is once
fully developed, in that proportion the jaws and spines
harden ; and it would seem that by the muscular contrac-

Natural History and Transformations. 77

| tions and expansions of hatching, which bring the ventral
parts with great pressure against the shell, there might be
slight friction of the horny points which would wear
through the delicate amnion and facilitate the rupture of
the shell at the points marked d and e in Fig. 10.

After this is ruptured, the nascent larva, by a series of
undulating movements soon works itself entirely out of the
egg-shell and makes its way to the light in the manner
already described. Once fully escaped from the soil, it
rests for a short time from its exertions. Its task is by no
means complete : before it can feed or move with alacrity
it must molt a pellicle* which completely encases every
part of the body. This it does in the course of three or
four minutes, or even less, by a continuance of the same
contracting and expanding movements which freed it from
the earth, and which now burst the skin on the back of
the head. The body is then gradually worked from its
delicate covering until the last of the hind legs is free and
the exuvium remains, generally near the point where the
animal issued from the ground, as a little, white, crumpled
pellet. Pale and colorless.at first, the full-born insect in
the course of half an hour assumes its dark-gray coloring.

From this account of the hatching process, we can read-
ily understand why the female in ovipositing prefers com-
pact or hard soil to that which is loose. The harder and
less yielding the walls of the burrow, the easier will the

_ young locust crowd its way out.
~ Though the covering which envelops the little animal
when first it issues from the egg is quite delicate, it never-
theless in the struggles of birth undoubtedly affords pro-
tection from the burrow, and it is an interesting fact that

* This pellicle (the amnion) is common to most insects. Asa rule it is left
With the chorzon, but by most Orthoptera and Neuroptera it is shed after leaving
the egg.

78 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

while it is shed within a few minutes of the time when the |
animal reaches the free air, it is seldom shed if, from one |
cause or other, there is failure to escape from the soil, even
though the young locust may be struggling for days to
effect an escape.

While yet enveloped in this pellicle, the animal possesses |
great forcing and pushing power, andif the soil be not too
compact, will frequently force a direct passage through the
same to the surface, as indicated at the dotted lines, Fig.
9,e. But if the soil is at all compressed it can make little
or no headway, except through the appropriate channel
(d). While crowding its way out, the antennez and four
front legs are held in much the same position as within the —
egg, the hind legs being generally stretched. But the
members bend in every conceivable way, and where sev-
eral are endeavoring to work through any particular ©
passage, the amount of squeezing and crowding they will
endure is something remarkable. Yet if by chance the
protecting pellicle is worked off before issuing from the
ground, the animal loses all power of further forcing its
way out. The instinctive tendency to push upwards is
also remarkable. In glass tubes, in which I have had the
eggs hatching in order to watch the young, these last
would always turn their heads and push toward the bot-
tom whenever the tubes were turned mouth downward ;
while in tin boxes where the eggs were placed at different
depths in the ground, the young never descended, even
when they were unable to ascend on account of the com-
pactness of the soil above.

GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATIONS.

The little locust when first hatched is quite pale, but
soon becomes mottled with gray and brown. Except in
having a shorter, narrower prothorax, sloping roof-fashion

_ wings are acquired, and the

Natural History and Transformations. ‘79
to a meridian ridge, and in lacking wings, the young
locust scarcely differs in structure from its parent ; and
the perfect, winged form is gradually assumed through a
series of five molts, during the first four of which the
wing-pads become larger, [ Fig. 11.]
and during the last, from
the pupa (Fig. 11, c), to gs
the perfect state, the tho- w) «
tax becomes flattened, the

insect ceases to grow and =//
is ready to procreate. The ey
time required from hatchirg Lh Gs leree) (une
till the wings are obtained, differs very much according to
latitude and season, but averages from six weeks to two
months.

In order to illustrate the interesting process of molting
we will trace an individual through the last molt—from
the pupa to the winged insect—as it is the most difficult,
and, on account of the larger size of the animal, most
easily watched. The other molts are very similar, except
that the wing-pads increase but moderately in size with
each. When about to acquire wings the pupa crawls up
some post, weed, grass-stalk, or other object, and clutches
such object securely with the hind feet, which are drawn
up under the body. In doing so the favorite position is
with the head downward, though this is by no means essen-
tial. Remaining motionless in this position for several
hours, with antennze drawn down over the face, and the
whole aspect betokening helplessness, the thorax, especially
between the wing-pads, is noticed to swell. Presently the
skin along this swollen portion splits right along the mid-
dle of the head and thorax, starting by a transverse-curved
suture between the eyes, and ending at the base of the

80 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

abdcmen. Let us now imagine that we are watching one
from the moment of this splitting, and when it presents.
the appearance of Fig. 12, a. As soon as the skin is split,
the soft and white fore-body and head swell and gradually

[ Fig. 12.]

Rocky MOUNTAIN LocusT :—Process of acquiring wings: @, pupa with skin just.
split on the back ; b, the imago extruding ; c, the imago nearly out; d, the imago with
wings expanded.

extrude more and more by a series of muscular contor-
tions ; the new head slowly emerges from the old skin,
which, with its empty eyes, is worked back beneath ; the
new feelers and legs are being drawn from their casings,
and the future wings from their sheaths. At the end of
six or seven minutes our locust—no longer pupa and not
yet imago—looks as in Fig. 12, 0, the four front pupa-legs
being generally detached and the insect hanging by the
hooks of the hind feet, which were anchored while yet it
had that command over them which it has now lost. The
receding skin is transparent and loosened, especially from
the extremities. In six or seven minutes more of arduous
labor—of swelling and contracting—with an occasional
brief respite, the antenne and the four front legs are freed,
and the fulled and crimped wings extricated. The soft
front legs rapidly stiffen, and, holding to its support as

well as may be with these, the nascent locust employs
whatever muscular force it possesses in drawing out the
end of the abdomen, and its long hind legs (Fig. 12, ¢).
This in a few more minutes is accomplished, and with gait
as unsteady as that of a new-dropped colt, it turns round
and clambers up the side of the shrunken, cast-off skin,
and there rests while the wings expand and every part of
the body hardens and gains strength—the crooked limbs
straightening and the wings unfolding and expanding like
the petals of some pale flower. The front wings are at
first rolled longitudinally to a point, and as they expand
and unroll, the hind wings, which are tucked and gathered
along the veins, at first curl over them. In ten or fifteen
minutes from the time of extrication these wings are fully
expanded and hang down like dampened rags (Fig. 12, d).
From this point on, the broad hind wings begin to fold up
like fans beneath the narrower front ones, and —; Fig. 13]

in another ten minutes they have assumed the
normal attitude of rest. Meanwhile the pale
colors which always belong to the insect while
molting have been gradually giving way to the
natural tints, and at this stage our new-fledged
_ locust presents an aspect fresh and bright (Fig.
13). If now we examine the cast-off skin we
shall find every part entire, with the exception
of the rupture which originally took place
on the back; and it would puzzle one who
had not witnessed the operation to divine how

the now stiff hind shanks of the mature insect main Looust:
had been extricated from the bent skeleton 4l! parts perfect.
left behind. They are in fact drawn over the bent
_knee-joint, so that during the process they have been
bent double throughout their length. They were as

supple at the time as an oil-soaked string, and for some
6

82 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

time after extrication they show the effects of this severe
bending by their curved appearance.

The molting, from the bursting of the pupa-skin to the
full adjustment of the wings and straightening of the legs
of the perfect insect, occupies less than three-quarters of
an hour, and sometimes but half an hour. It takes place
most frequently during the warmer hours of the morning,
and within an hour after the wings are once in position
the parts have become sufficiently dry and stiffened to en-
able the insect to move about with ease, and in another
hour, with appetite sharpened by long fast, it joins its
voracious comrades and tries its new jaws. The molting
period, especially the last; is a very critical one, and dur-
ing the helplessness that belongs to it the unfortunate
locust falls a prey to many enemies which otherwise would
not molest it, and not infrequently to the voracity of the
more active individuals of its own species.

As already stated, there are five molts exclusive of that
which takes place upon leaving the egg. In the first stage
—that following the egg—the wing-pads are not visible ;
in the second stage they are likewise scarcely noticeable ;
in the third (after the second molt) they project but little
beyond the meso- and meta-thorax, differ but little in size,
and are directed downwards, lying separately close to the
body ; in the fourth stage (after third molt) they are di-
rected upward, the hind covering and hiding more or less
the front pair, and the joints bearing them retreating more
beneath the prothorax ; in the fifth stage (after fourth
molt) they are enlarged as seen in the pupa, and with the
fifth molt the sixth or perfect stage is attained.

European authors differ as to whether there are three,
four or five molts in the European migratory species ; *

* See Koeppen, ** Ueber die Heuschrecken in Suedrussland,’’ 1866. pp. 22-3.

Natural History and Transformations. 83

but I have watched spretus from the egg to the imago,
and thousands of mounted and alcoholic specimens of all
ages show the stages enumerated. The transition from
the second to the third, however, is often imperceptible,
and it is not at all improbable that, as is the case with
many other insects, the number of molts will vary accord-
ing to the amount of nutrition and rapidity of develop-
ment. The joints of the antenne increase with each molt,
from 13 in the newly hatched to 24 or 25 in the full-fledged

insect.
FLIGHT AT NIGHT.

It is the very general experience throughout the coun-
try subject to invasion, that the winged insects rise, as
soon as the sun begins to dissipate the dew, and that they
come down again toward evening, as the sun’s rays lose
their power. It is a question, therefore, whether they ever
continue flying during the night, and one which future
investigation will doubtless settle. I am of the opinion
that during the warmer mid-summer and early fall season,
when the insects are departing from their northwest hatch-
Ing grounds, they must not infrequently continue flight
from necessity ; for the descent of a swarm borne along
in a strong current of air, at an altitude of over a mile
above the earth, will depend more on some change in
strength or direction of the current than on any other
condition of the atmosphere.

CHA Tai 2 V:

HABITS, AND POWER FOR INJURY.
ITS FLIGHT AND RAVAGES.

THE voracity of these insects can hardly be imagined by
those who have not witnessed them, in solid phalanx,
falling upon a cornfield and converting, in a few hours,
the green and promising acres into a desolate stretch of
pare, spindling stalks and stubs. Covering each hill by
hundreds ; scrambling from row to row like a lot of young
famished pigs let out to their trough ; insignificant indi-
vidually, but mighty collectively—they sweep clean a field
quicker than would a whole herd of hungry steers. Im-
agine hundreds of square miles covered with such a
ravenous horde, and one can get some realization of the
picture presented in many parts of the country west of
the Mississippi during years of locust invasion.

Their flight may be likened to an immense snow storm,
extending from the ground to a height at which our visual
organs perceive them only as minute, darting scintilla-
tions—leaving the imagination to picture them indefinite
distances beyond. ‘“ When on the highest peaks of the
snowy range, fourteen or fifteen thousand feet above the
sea, [have seen them filling the air as much higher as
they could be distinguished with a good field glass.”* It.

is a vast cloud of animated specks, glittering against the

* Wm. N. Byers, Am. Hntomologist, I, p. 94.
(85 )

86 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

sun. On the horizon they often appear as a dust tornado,
riding upon the wind like an ominous hail storm, eddying
and whirling about like the wild dead leaves in an autumn

[ Fig. 14.]

A Swarm oF LOCUSTS FALLING UPON AND DEVOURING A WHEAT-FIELD.

storm, and finally sweeping up to and past you, with a
power that is irresistible. They move mainly with the
wind, and when there is no wind they whirl about in the
air like swarming bees. If a passing swarm suddenly
meets with a change in the atmosphere, “such as the
approach of a thunder-storm or gale of wind, they come
down precipitately, seeming to fold their wings, and fall

Habits, and Power for Injury. 87

by the force of gravity, thousands being killed by the fall,
if it is upon stone or other hard surface.”* In alighting,
they circle in myriads about you, beating against every-
thing animate or inanimate ; driving into open doors and
windows; heaping about your feet and around your
buildings ; their jaws constantly at work biting and test-
ing all things in seeking what they can devour. In the
midst of the incessant buzz and noise which such a flight
produces ; in face of the unavoidable destruction every-
where going on, one is bewildered and awed at the
collective power of the ravaging host, which calls to mind
so forcibly the plagues of Egypt.

_ The noise their myriad jaws make when engaged in their
work of destruction, can be realized by any one who has
“fought ” a prairie fire, or heard the flames passing along
before a brisk wind: the low crackling and rasping—
the general effect of the two sounds, is very much the
same. Southey, in his Thalaba,} most graphically pictures
this noise produced by the flight and approach of locusts:

‘¢ Onward they come, a dark, continuous cloud
Of congregated myriads numberless,
The rushing of whose wings was as the sound
Of abroad river, headlong in its course
Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar
Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm,
Shattering its billows on ashore of rocks!”’

Nothing, however, can surpass the prophet Joel’s ac-
count of the appearance and ravages of these insects.
Omitting the figurative parts, it is accurate and graphic
beyond measure :

‘‘ A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds
and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the

mountains ; a great people and a strong ; there hath not

* Wm. N. Byers, Hayden’s Geol. Sury., 1870, p. 282.
4:58, 5. 169.

88 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even
to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth |
before them; and behind them a flame burneth; the |
land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind |
them a desolate wilderness ; yea, and nothing shall escape |
them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of
horses; and as horsemen, soshallthey run. Like the noise
of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like —
the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as |
a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the
people shall be much pained ° all faces shall gather black-
ness. They shall run like mighty men ; they shall climb
the wall like men of war; and they shall march every
one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks.
‘3 a * They shall run to and fro in the city ; they
shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the
houses ; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.” |

Those who suffered from and witnessed the vast army |
that cast a blight over so large a portion of our Western |
country in 1£74 and 1876 ; or who passed by rail, during |
the better part of two days, through a perfect storm of
these insects, which frequently impeded or stopped the
train by their crushed bodies reducing the traction—will
concede that Joel’s picture is not overdrawn, and that,
though written over 2,500 years ago, it might have been
inspired from many parts of North America in the years
named.

THE MIGRATORY INSTINCT AND GREAT DESTRUCTIVE POWER
BELONG TO BUT ONE SPECIES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

Being anxious to ascertain whether the injuries reported
in the different parts of the country between the Missis- _
sippi and the Rocky Mountains were all caused by one —
species, or whether others joined their forces in devastat-

Habits, and Power for Injury. 89

ing the country, I have taken some pains to procure speci-
mens from as many different localities as possible. After
examining such from every State and Territory in the
country mentioned, from British America to the Gulf, it is
obvious that in every instance it is the same species that
proves such ascourge. As yet, we know nothing very defi-
nite about the species that has in the past done so much
damage in California and other parts of the country west
of the mountain range. Some suppose it to be the dip-
oda atrox, Scudder; but as spretus has been taken in
Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Nevada, this species, or a race
of it, will doubtless be found to be the culprit.

Only occasionally do specimens of some of the more
common species accompany the migratory one. Thus the
larger and common species, the Two-striped Locust (Cad.
optenus bivittatus, Say) and the Differential Locust (C.
differentialis, Walk.) which are incapable of migrating to
any great distance, and which are common in the Missis-
sippi Valley, have occasionally been caught with the spre-
tus, and sent to me with it. Already existing in the
_ country invaded by the Rocky Mountain species, they
were simply Sathered up with it.

Yet, while no other species possesses such wonderful
migratory habits, several become so enormously multiplied
during certain years in their native homes as to commit
very serious injury to vegetation. Some of them are also
capable of extended flight. Of these, I shall speak more
fully further on.

FOOD PLANTS.

The Rocky Mountain Locust may be said to be almost
omnivorous. Scarcely anything comes amiss to the raven-
ous hosts when famished. They will feed upon the dry
bark of trees or the dry lint of seasoned fence planks; and

90 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

upon dry leaves, paper, cotton and woolen fabrics. They |
have been seen literally covering the backs of sheep, |
eating the wool ; and whenever one of their own kind is
weak or disabled, from whatsoever cause, they go for him
or her with cannibalistic ferocity, and soon finish the
struggling and kicking unfortunate. They do not refuse
even dead animals, but have been seen feasting on dead
bats and birds. Few things, therefore, come amiss to them.
Yet where food is abundant they are fastidious and much
prefer acid, bitter or peppery food to that which 1s sweet.
The following résumé of my notes and observations may
prove interesting: Vegetables and cereals are their main
stay. Turnips, rutabagas, carrots, cabbage, kohlrabi
and radishes are all devoured with avidity; beets and
potatoes with less relish, though frequently nothing but
a few stalk-stubs of the latter are left, and sometimes the
tubers in the ground do not escape. Onions they are
very partial to, seldom leaving anything but the outer
rind. Of leguminous plants the pods are preferred to the
leaves, which are often passed by. Cucurbitaceous plants
also suffer most in the fruit. In the matter of tobacco ~
their tastes are cultivated, and they seem té relish an old
quid or an old cigar more than the green leaf. Tomatoes
and sweet potatoes are not touched so long as other food
is accessible.

Of cereals, corn is their favorite ; if young and tender,
everything is devoured to the ground ; if older and drier,
the stalks are mostly left ; the silk is, however, the first
part to go. All other cereals are to their taste, except
sorghum and broom corn, which are often left untouched.
The bearded varieties of wheat have been less damaged.
in Minnesota, by the winged insects, than the smooth
varieties. They are fond of buckwheat and flax, but
seldom touch castor beans.except to fecd upon the flower.

Habits, and Power for Injury. 91

Next to vegetables and cereals, they relish the leaves of
fruit trees; they strip apple and sweet cherry trees, leaving
nothing but the fruit hanging on the bare twigs. The
leaves of the peach are generally left untouched, but the
flesh of the unripe fruit is eaten to the stone. Pear trees,
as Prof. Gale informs me, suffered less than any other kind
of orchard tree at the Experimental farm of the Agricul-
tural College at Manhattan, Kansas. The tender bark of
twig and branch and trunk of all these trees is gnawed
and girdled, and these girdled trees present a sad picture
as one passes through the ravaged country during the
subsequent winter. Sour cherry, apricot and plum trees
are less affected by them, while ripe fruit is seldom
touched.

Of berries, strawberries and blackberries are devoured
where raspberries are frequently unmolested. Flowering
shrubs very generally suffer, and they are particularly fond
of Rose and Lilac. Of herbaceous plants, Helianthus,
Amarantus and Xanthium are eaten with especial avidity.
Grape vines suffer more from the girdling of the fruit-
’ stems than from defoliation. Forest and shade trees suffer
in different degrees, and some, when young, are not infre-
quently killed outright.

In 1874, Honey Locust, Red Cedar, Box Elder, Osage
Orange, Elm and Oak, were either untouched or but little
injured, while the following trees were preferred in the
order of their naming: Ash, Willow, Cottonwood, Balm
of Gilead, Silver-leaved and Lombardy Poplars, Black
Ash, Black Locust, Black Walnut, Hickory, Ailanthus,
Maple, Sumach and Evergreens. In every case they show
a marked preference for plants that are unhealthy or
wilted. In 1876 they in some cases showed a partiality
for some plants that were passed by on other occasions,
and their tastes are quite eccentric.

92 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

It is generally supposed that evergreens escape the |
ravages of the young insects, but wherever these are abun- |
dant, hemlock, arbor vite, the different pines, and espe-
cially the Norway spruce, for which they show a predi-
lection, are stripped. The red cedar more often escapes.
Wild prairie grass, especially that which is low, is eaten
down less closely than other grasses, and oats more often
escape than other cereals. Blue grass is sometimes killed
out, but more generally not, and young corn is eaten down
so often and so deeply into the ground that it is frequently
destroyed. Potatoes are not killed by being eaten down,
and generally make a crop after the insects leave, without
replanting. This is especially the case when they are plant-
ed deep, and where the vines as they grow are at first kept
covered with earth, which they can be with impunity. The
blossoms and stems of peas are left after the leaves are
stripped, and parsnips sometimes remain untouched. All
other vegetables are swept off. Of wild plants, Milkweed,
(Asclepias) and Dogbane (Apocynum) are little to their
taste, and are taken only when all else is destroyed ; an
occasional Salvia trichostemmoides and Vernonia nove-
boracensis will also be left in the general ruin; but the
plant of all others that enjoys immunity from the omniy-
orous creatures is the Amarantus Blitum, a low, creeping,
glossy-leaved herb, lately introduced into Missouri. I
found this plant unmolested even where the insects were
so hard pushed for food that they were feeding on each
other and on dead leaves, the bark of trees, lint of fences,
etc., and where they were so thick hiding amid its leaves
that fifty to a hundred occurred to the square foot. The |
immunity of the plant is the more remarkable since the
other species of the genus do not escape.

The dislike of locusts for Leguminous plants is very
general, and, as Mr. G. M. Dawson, of Montreal, Canada, |

Habits, and Power for Injury. 93

first suggested, there 1s probably a connection between
this dislike and the large number of such plants found on
the western plains.

In 1874, in Missouri, plants belonging to the Nightshade
family (Solanacee) generally escaped their ravages ; the
tops of potatoes and tomatoes were not eaten. Sweet.
potatoes, -parsnips, castor-beans, butter-beans, carrots,
celery and the tops of beets were not molested. They did
no damage to broom-corn or sorghum. Tobacco was in
most cases not eaten, and if eaten, it is reported as killing
the locusts. Prairie grass, wild weeds and the leaves of
most forest trees were left uninjured. Plants growing in
wet places, or in the shade of trees, hills, etc., mostly
escaped injury. Finally, when pushed to extremities,
there is only one plant—the little Amarantus above men-
tioned—that I have found that they will not touch.

INJURY TO FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES.

It is doubtful if grain-growers and stock-raisers suffer as
much in the end as fruit-growers, from locust injuries.
The injury is at first less felt by these, but in many in-
stances it is more lasting and serious. Most trees survive
one or two defoliations, but in many cases no leaves are
permitted to grow for weeks, just at the season when they
are most needed. This was especially the case in 1875
with low shrubs, such as gooseberries and currants, in
which the insects were fond of roosting. Where not ex-
cessively numerous, heart-cherries were preferred over
others, and the insects would pass through a strawberry
bed and only clean out the weeds. A great many trees
were killed outright, and it was often found necessary to
cut down the grape-vines. Trees not killed were often
badly barked and lost many limbs, and except where pro-
tected by ditches, no orchards yielded fruit. Many trees

94 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

put forth a few secondary blossoms after the insects left, |
and a few small apples were noticed on such in autumn.

TIME OF APPEARANCE OF INVADING SWARMS.

In endeavoring to deduce general conclusions respect-
ing the time of year that the 1874 swarms reached different
parts of the country, great difficulty was experienced in
sifting those accounts which referred to the progeny of
the 1873 invasion, and those which hatched within the
insect’s native range, and came from the extreme North-
west. The same was true of the fresh 1876 swarms, and
those which hatched in Minnesota. Yet we shall find, as
a rule, that the insects which hatch outside of what is
designated further on as their native habitat—7. e., in
Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, and the larger part of Nebraska,
Kansas and Texas—acquire wings and leave before the
fresh swarms from the mountain region appear. In the
more northerly of the States, as in Minnesota, the insects
hatched on the ground in ordinary seasons acquire wings ~
in June, and earlier in proportion as we go south, until
in Texas they become fledged in April. The time of appear-
ance of the new swarms is in inverse ratio: 7. ¢., earlier
in the more northern, later in the more southern States-
Thus, while on the confines of the insect’s native habitat,
it is almost if not quite impossible to distinguish between
the old and the new comers, in respect to the time of
their acquiring wings, the difference in this respect be-
comes greater the farther south and east we go. In 1874,
swarms appeared during June in Southern Dakota; during
July in Colorado, Nebraska and Minnesota; during the
latter part of this month in Iowa and Western Kansas.
During August they came into Southeast Kansas and Mis-
souri ; and by the middle of October they reached Dallas,
in Texas. In 1876 they came later.

Habits, and Power for Injury. 95

One noticeable feature of the invasions is the greater
rapidity with which the insects spread in the earlier part
of the season, while in fullest vigor, and the reduction in
the average rate of progress the farther east and south
they extend. The length of their stay depends much upon
circumstances. Early in the summer, when they first
begin to pour down on the more fertile country, they sel-
dom remain more than two or three days ; whereas, later
in the season, they stay much longer. In speaking of the
advent and departure of these insects, I use relative lan-
guage only. The first comers, when—after having devoured
everything palatable—they take wing away, almost always
leave a scattering rear-guard behind, and are generally fol-
lowed by new swarms ; anda country once visited presents
for weeks the spectacle of the insects gradually rising in
the air between the hours of 9 or 10 a. m. and 3 Pp. M., and
being carried away by the wind, while others are constantly
dropping. : |

RATE AT WHICH THE INVADING SWARMS SPREAD.

This may be illustrated by the history of the 1876 in-
vasion. Leaving Montana about the middle of July, the
insects reached far into Texas by the end of September,
thus extending about 1,500 miles in 75 days, or an average
of about 20 miles per day. But over a large part of this
territory, viz., portions of Wyoming, most of Dakota and
Nebraska, Western Minnesota, Northwestern Iowa, North-
western Kansas, and Northeastern Colorado—they appeared

‘almost simultaneously, or during the last few days of July
and the first few days of August; and this, I think, indicates
that they were at that time swept down at a very much
higher rate by the northwesterly winds from Montana and
British America. After that time the extension south was
tolerably rapid, but the extension east was more and more

96 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

slow. They occupied nearly a month reaching from North-
western Iowa to the southwestern limit in the same State,
and their eastward progress on the confines of the limit-
line already indicated was still more gradual as they went
south. All of which indicates that they fly most power-
fully when leaving the higher altitudes of the Northwest,
and most persistently during the first week or so after be-
coming fledged, while the females are not yet prompted to
descend for oviposition. This is also the period when they
are passing over the vast plains and the sparsely settled
and uncultivated portion of the country, in which there is,
perhaps, least inducement for the ravenous host to halt.

As flight is not consecutive day after day, but often im-
peded by bad weather, and as it is not continuously in one
direction, the average rate is not more than twenty miles
a day. It is also most variable, and at times reaches 2
maximum of between two hundred and three hundred
miles daily.

DIRECTION OF FLIGHT OF INVADING SWARMS.

The wind is sometimes quite changeable during the
period of invasion, and we find the insects, at one time or
another, traveling in nearly all possible directions, except
due west. Yet the direction of the invading hosts has
been, and I believe always will be, conspicuously toward
the south and southeast. The exceptions are only sufficient
to prove the rule.

WHERE THE EGGS ARE LAID.

The eggs may be laid in almost any kind of soil, but by -
preference they are laid in bare, sandy places, especially
on high, dry ground, which is tolerably compact and not
loose. It is generally stated that they are not laid in
meadows and pastures, and that hard road-tracks are pre-
ferred ; in truth, however, meadows and pastures, where

abit. and Power for Injury: — wa

the grass is closely grazed, are much used for ovipositing
by the female, while on well-traveled roads she seldom
gets time to fulfill the act without being disturbed. Thus
a well-traveled road may present the appearance of being
perfectly honey-combed with holes, when an examination
will show that most of them are unfinished, and contain
no eggs ; whereas a field covered with grass-stubble may
show no signs of such holes and yet abound with eggs.
Furthermore, the insects are more readily noticed at their
work along roads and roadsides than in fields, a fact which
has also had something to do in forming the popular im-
pression. Newly plowed land is not liked ; it presents too
loose a surface ; but newly broken sward is often filled with
eggs. Moist or wet ground is generally avoided for the
purpose under. consideration. During the operation the
female is very intent on her work, and may be gently ap-
proached without becoming alarmed, though when sud-
denly disturbed she makes great efforts to get away, and
extricates her abdomen in the course of a few seconds, the
time depending on the depth reached.
TIME OF HATCHING.

The date at which the eggs hatch varies with the
earliness or lateness of the spring, and is moreover quite
irregular, some hatching in the same locality when the
first-hatched locusts are getting wings. Asa general rule,
however, the bulk of the eggs hatch out in the different
latitudes about as follows:

In Texas, from the middle to the last of March.

In the southern portions of Missouri and Kansas, about
the second week in April.

In the northern parts of Missouri and Kansas and the
southern sections of Iowa and Nebraska, the latter part
of April and first of May.

In Minnesota and Dakota, the usual time of hatching
7

98 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

ranges from early in May in the southern portions to the
third week in the northern extremity.

In Montana and Manitoba, from the middle of May to
the first of June.

In short, the bulk of the insects hatch, in ordinary
seasons, about the middle of March in latitude 35°, and
continue to hatch most numerously about four days later
with each degree of latitude north, until along the forty-
ninth parallel the same scenes are repeated that occurred
in Southern Texas seven or eight weeks before.

HABITS OF THE YOUNG OR UNFLEDGED LOCUSTS.

The habits of the young insects as they occur in the
country south of the forty-fourth parallel and east of the
one hundredth meridian, are as follows: Although possessed
of remarkably active powers from the moment they leave
the egg, yet so long as provision suffices for them on their
hatching-grounds the young remain almost stationary and
create but little apprehension. As soon, however, as the
supply of food in these situations is exhausted, they
commence to migrate, frequently in a body a mile wide,
devouring, as they advance, all the grass, grain and garden-
truck in their path. The migrating propensity is not
developed until after the first molt, and often not till after
the second or third. Up to that time they are content to
huddle in warm places, and live, for the most part, on
weeds, and especially on the common Dog-fennel or May-.
weed (Maruta) where it is present.

The young locusts display gregarious instincts from the’
start, and congregate in immense numbers in warm and
sunny places. They thus often blacken the sides of houses
or the sides of hills, They remain thus huddled together
during cold, damp weather. Whennot traveling, and when
food is abundant, or during bad, rainy weather, they are

Habits, and Power for Injury. 99

fond of congregating on fences, buildings, trees, or anything
removed from the moist ground. They also prefer to get
into such positions to undergo their different molts. In
fields they collect at night or during cold, damp weather,
under any rubbish that may be at hand, and may be enticed
under straw, hay, etc., scattered on the ground. Old prairie
grass affords good shelter, and where a wheat-field is
surrounded with unburnt prairie, they will gather for shelter
along the borders of this last.

Their power for injury increases with their growth. At
first devouring the vegetation in particular fields and
patches in the vicinity of their birth-places, they gradually
widen the area of their devastation, until at last, if very
numerous, they devour every green thing over extensive

districts. Whenever they have thus devastated a country
they are forced to feed upon one another, and perish in
immense numbers from debility and starvation. Whenever
timber is accessible they collect in it, and after cleaning out
the underbrush, feed upon the dead leaves and bark. A
few succeed in climbing up into the rougher-barked trees,
where they feed upon the foliage, and it is amusing to see
with what avidity the famished individuals below scramble
for any fallen leaf that the more fortunate mounted ones
may chance to sever. This increase in destructiveness
continues until the bulk of the locusts have undergone
their larval molts and attained the pupa state. The pupa,
being brighter colored, with more orange than the larva,
the insects now look, as they congregate, like swarms of
bees. From this time on they begin to decrease in numbers,
though retaining their ravenous propensities. They die
rapidly from disease and from the attacks of natural enemies,
while a large number fall a prey, while in the helpless condi-
tion of molting, to the cannibalistic proclivities of their own
kind. Those that acquire wings rise in the air during

100 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

the warmer parts of the day, and wend their way as far
as the wind will permit toward their native home in the
Northwest. They mostly carry with them the germs of
disease or are parasitized, and wherever they settle do
comparatively little damage.

DIRECTIONS IN WHICH THE YOUNG LOCUSTS TRAVEL.

The young insects move, as a rule, during the warmer
hours of the day only, feeding, if hungry, by the way, but
generally marching in a given direction until toward
evening. They travel in schools or armies, in no particular
direction, but purely im search of food—the same school
one day often pursuing a different course from that
pursued the day previous. On this point the experience
of 1875 is conclusive, though the bulk of the testimony as
to their actions, when hatching out in the States to the
north and west, 1s to the effect that the prevailing direction
taken is south or southeast, while in Southern Texas it is
just opposite, or north. A person traveling along a road
may often see one army marching in one direction to the
left and another in the opposite direction to the right.

RATE AT WHICH THE YOUNG TRAVEL.

When about half grown they seldom move at a greater
rate than three yards a minute, even when at their greatest
speed over a tolerably smooth and level road, and not
halting to feed. They walk three-fourths this distance and
hop the rest. ‘Two consecutive hops are seldom taken, and
any individual one may be run down and fatigued by
obliging it to hop ten or twelve times without a rest.

THEY REACH BUT A FEW MILES EAST OF WHERE THEY
HATCH.

At the rate at which they travel, as just described, they
could not extend many miles, even if they continued to

mous. ana Power jor Injury. ~ VOL

travel in one direction from the time of hatching until
maturity. They travel, on an average, not more than six
hours per day ; and their unfledged existence terminates
in from six to eight, say seven, weeks. It is very easy to
calculate from these facts that if they continued in one
direction from the time they hatch until they acquire
wings, they could not extend thirty miles. In reality,
however, they do not travel every day, and where food
is abundant they scarcely travel at all. Moreover, as just
shown, they do not commence traveling till after the first

[ Fig. 15.]

AMERICAN ACRIDIUM.

molt, and they do not-go continually in a particularly
eastern direction, but in all directions.

We have already seen that the winged insects take a north-
west direction, and donot fly totheeast. Yet in 1875 afew
stragglers were carried as far as the centre of Missouri by
being swept into the Missouri river and drifted on logs and
chips during the annual rise of that riverin July. These
soon become lost to view; for most of them are intestate
or diseased, and if they should lay eggs the young hatch
early in the fall and perish at the approach of winter.

NOT LED BY “KINGS” OR “ QUEENS.”

The idea that the young hoppers were led in their
marches by so-called “kings” or ‘‘ queens” has been,

102 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

at different times, very prevalent. It is, however, quite
unfounded. Certain large locusts belonging to the genera
Acridium and Cdipoda, hibernate in the full grown,
winged state, and not in the egg state, like the Rocky Moun-
tain species. Always with us, their presence is simply
more manifest in the spring, when the face of the earth is
bare. Hopping with the others or falling into ditches
with them, they give rise to this false notion, and it is an
interesting fact, as showing how the same circumstances at
times give rise to similar erroneous ideas in widely separate
parts of the world, that the same idea prevails in parts
of Europe and Asia.

The two species which are most often thus found with
the young locusts and supposed from their size and con-
spicuousness to be guides, are the American Acridium
(Acridium Americanum, Drury, Fig. 15), and the Coral-

[ Fig. 16.] winged Lo-
cust ( Hdipo-
da phenicop-

f =" tera, Germ.,
A —— Fig.16). The

i hi $
SS former is our
_—— largest and
-- most elegant
locust, the
prevailing color being dark brown, with a broad, pale
yellowish line along the middle of the back when the
wings are closed. The rest of the body is marked with
deep brown, verging to black, with pale reddish-brown,
and with whitish- or greenish-yellow; the front wings
being prettily mottled, the hind wings very faintly green-
ish with brown veins, and the hind shanks generally coral-
red with black-tipped, white spines. The species is quite
variable in color, size and marks, and several of the varie-

CORAL-WINGED LOCUST.

Habits, and Power for Injury. 103

ties have been described as distinct species. The Coral-
winged Locust is also an elegant species, the colors being
brown-black, brick-yellow inclining to brown, and a still
paler, whitish-gray ; the hind wings varying from vermil-
lion-red to pink, with more or less yellowish-green, and
with a broad external dusky border, broadest and palest
at tip. The hind shanks are yellow with black-tipped
spines. This species is also quite variable, and at least half
a dozen of its slight variations have been seized upon
from which to fabricate new species.

DIRECTION TAKEN BY THE DEPARTING SWARMS.

While, as we have just seen, the principal direction of
the invading swarms is south and southeast, the principal
direction of the departing swarms is north and northwest.
This is emphatically the case with those that rise from the
lower Missouri Valley country. In other words, there is
a return migration toward the home of the immediate
parents. That the insects instinctively seek this direction
there can, I think, be no doubt ; for while they depend in
great part on the wind for propulsion, and without its aid
would be unable to migrate to very great distances, I have
a large number of reports to show that whenever the wind
blew from the north or northwest, the locusts came down
and awaited a change to a more favorable direction. They
begin to rise when the dew has evaporated, and descend
again toward evening. A swarm passing over a country yet
infested with the mature insects, constantly receives accre-
tions from these, and is, consequently, always more dense
in the afternoon than in the forenoon. In rising, the in-
sects generally face the wind, and it is doubtful if they
could ascend to any great height without doing so. They
are, I believe, good navigators, and know how to take
advantage of the different air currents. The rate at which

104 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

they travel will depend on the force of the wind; but it
is evident from the observations made in Dakota, where
their advance in 1875 was reported by telegraph, that they
often travel a hundred milesaday. Their minimum speed,
in tolerably calm weather, when the wind is scarcely felt
at the surface of the ground, can not be much less than
from eight to ten miles an hour. :

In the more western and northern parts of the locust
region, as in Minnesota, Dakota and Colorado, the direc-
tion of the departing swarms will be less constant, and
according as they develop late, or are the progeny of
swarms that came from other directions than the north-
west, they will either be carried by the wind or will
instinctively leave, in other directions.

DESTINATION OF THE DEPARTING SWARMS.

That the swarms which leave the fertile country in
which they hatch and are not indigenous, pass by degrees
to the northwest, and reach into Northwestern Dakota,
Wyoming and Montana, the records clearly prove. That
they also reach far up into the northwest regions of
British America, the record of the flights of 1875 in
Chapter II (p. 42) also abundantly attests. It is also just
as certain that a large proportion of those which take wing
perish on the way from debility, the effects of storms,
and more particularly from the attacks of parasites ; be-
cause I proved by careful dissection in 1875 that a large
proportion of those which came to maturity and left the
western counties of Missouri, carried with them the germs
of destruction in the shape of Tachina eggs or the larve
already hatched and of various sizes. Others again were
infested with the scarlet mites. We may very justly con-
clude, therefore, that a large proportion of the insects
which depart from the country invaded, perish on their way

Habits, and Power for Injury. 105

toward the native breeding grounds of the species, and
that those which do not so perish reach the Rocky Moun-
tain region of the Northwest, whence their parents had
come the previous year. They are carried back with favor-
ing winds, in thinned and weakened ranks, and those that
did not start with the germs of disease, and which escape
from other vicissitudes, doubtless succeed in reaching those
conditions which favor the continued perpetuation of the
species. They do comparatively little harm on the way,
and are not, by any manner of means, to be likened to the
more disastrous swarms from the opposite direction in the
fall.

OA P THR OV:

EFFECTS OF THE YOUNG INSECTS IN THE
COUNTRY IN WHICH THEY HATCH,
BUT ARE NOT INDIGENOUS.

EXPERIENCE WITH THE YOUNG LOCUSTS IN THE SPRING.

Havine already spoken, in Chapter II, of the desolate
aspect which the ravaged country sometimes wears toward
the end of June, it will suffice in this connection to give a
few of the more interesting experiences. It is recorded in
Europe that few things, not even water, stop the armies of
the young locusts when on the march, and Dongingk
relates having seen them swim over the Dnjestr for a
stretch of one and a quarter German miles, and in layers
seven or eight inches thick.* We have had similar expe-
rience with our own species. Mr. James Hanway, of Lane,
Kansas, informs me that the young in 1875 crossed the
Pottawatomie Creek, which is about four rods wide, by
millions. The Big and Little Blues, tributaries of the
Missouri—the one about one hundred feet wide at its
mouth, and the other not so wide—were crossed at numer-
ous places by the moving armies, which would march
down to the water’s edge, and commence jumping in, one
upon another, till they would pontoon the stream, so as to
effect a crossing. Two of these mighty armies met—one
moving east and the other west—opposite a farm adjoin-

* Koeppen, loc. cit., p. 82.
( 107)

108 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

ing Mr. Z. 8. Ragan, of Independence, Mo., on the river }
bluff. Each turned its course north,and down the bluff, }
and, coming to a perpendicular ledge of rock twenty-five |
or thirty feet high, passed over in a sheet, apparently six |
or seven inches thick, at the same time causing a roaring

noise similar to that of a cataract of water. |

CONTRAST IN SUMMER AND FALL.

After the insects have left, or by the end of July in the
latitude of St. Louis—earlier or later as we go south or
north—the ravaged country begins to wear a bright and
promising aspect, in strong contrast with the desolation |
of a month before. In August, the contrast becomes still
more gratifying, and frequently there are grown the finest.
crops of corn, Hungarian grass, prairie meadow, buckwheat. |
and vegetables of all kinds. In September, the change |
which three months have wrought needs to be seen to be |
appreciated. Root crops do well, and vegetables of all —
kinds attain immense proportions, owing to the freedom
from weeds, and fertility resulting from the dung and
bodies of the dead locusts.

NO EVIL WITHOUT SOME COMPENSATING GOOD.

Not to mention the valuable experience and the quick-.
ening influence that are generally gained in temporary
adversity, there are other ways in which good may grow ©
out of the locust troubles when they are severe. The |
chinch bugs filled the air in the spring of 1875, throughout.
the stricken district, and many persons feared that they |
would destroy the corn crop even if the locusts left. [I
then argued that there was no danger of such a result,
and that there was every reason to expect less injury from —
this cause than usual, and with a wet summer, which might. —
be expected, an almost total annihilation of the pest. With —

Injury from the Young. 109

| everything eaten by the locusts, the female chinches,

instead of being quietly engaged, unseen, in laying eggs,

as they usually are in May, were flying about, seeking

plants on the roots of which to deposit their eggs. For
this reason, they were more noticeable. Once fully devel-
oped in the ovaries, the eggs must be laid, and the great
bulk of them were necessarily laid where the young hatch-
ing from them were destined to perish, as the result proved;
for, injurious as the species had been for the two or three
previous years, scarcely a specimen was to be found in the
fall. The same will hold true of many other insect pests,
which are starved out in the spring by utter devastation
of their food-plants ; and such a devastated country is
apt to be free from most noxious insects during the subse-
quent two or three years.

The unusual productiveness of the soil in the stricken
country was on all hands noted during the year 1875, and
was Owing, in no small degree, to the rich coating of ma-
nure which the locusts left. In the form of excrement and
dead locusts, the bulk of that which was lost in spring was
left in the best condition to be carried into the soil and
utilized. The introduction of new seed from other States
was also beneficial.

Nature generally maintains her averages, and whenever
diminished southern winds, drouth and locusts have pre-
vailed, the opposite conditions are very apt to follow, and
give us plenteous harvests in the place of short crops.

CHANGES THAT FOLLOW THE LOCUSTS.

The invasions into a country of large numbers of animals,
whether men or insects, are often followed by changes in
the vegetation of that country. Certain strange plants
are said to yet mark the path through the Southern States
which Sherman’s soldiers took in their march to the sea,

110 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

es

and a number of plants new to the country are known to |
have been introduced into France by the Germans during

the late Franco-Prussian war. So the locust incursions and
devastations in Kansas and Missouri were followed by
Some curious changes. These changes consisted mostly in
the great prevalence of plants that in ordinary seasons are
scarcely noticed. The Amarantus Blitum, already spoken
of, spread at an unprecedented rate, and grew in great
luxuriance. Immediately after the locusts left, the common

. GREEN LaARva oF WHITE-LINED MORNING SPHINX.

purslane started everywhere and usurped the place of
many other species. The common Nettle (Solanum Caro-
l“inense), and the Sand burr (S. rostratum), spread in 1875
to an alarming degree, and the Poke weed (Phytolacca
decandra), was very abundant, All kinds of grasses grew
very luxuriantly during the summer, a fact due to the wet
and favorable weather; but some kinds* that are rare in
ordinary seasons, got the start and grew in great strength
and abundance. Among these none are more notable than
the sudden appearance very generally over the locust-
devastated region, of what is usually called a new grass.

Sree ee 0

* Prof. G. C. Brodhead (Trans. St. Louis Ac. Sc. ITI, p. 348,) mentions more
particularly, Aristida olugostachya, in ordinary seasons of rare occurrence around
Pleasant Hill, as reaching the unusual height of two feet, and being very abundant.
Eragrostis poeoides, ordinarily recumbent and scarcely noticed in yards and along
roadsides, grew in profusion and three and a half feet high, ‘‘ looking like mead-
Ows ready to be mowed.” Panicum sanguinale was luxuriant enough to be cut
for hay.

Injury from the Young. abt

Springing up wherever the blue grass gets killed out, it
proves a godsend to the people, for while it is young and
tender, cattle like it and fatten uponit. This grass is the
Vilfa vagineflora, an annual which is common from the At-
lantic to the Rocky Mountains. Unnoticed during ordinary
seasons, the destruction of the blue grass and other plants
by the too close gnawing of the locusts, gives it the advan-
tage in the struggle for existence—an advantage which is
soon lost, however, as the normal relations between species

[ Fig. 18.]

BLACK LARVA OF WHITE-LINED MORNING SPHINX

are assumed again in a few years after the disturbing
influence has ceased to be operative. Indeed, since the
Vilfa ripens and dies early in the fall, the blue grass gains
ground the very first year, and afterward easily retains
supremacy. The wide-spread appearance of the Vilfa,
following the locusts, has been explained on the hypothesis
that the latter brought the seed from the West and passed
it undigested with their droppings. The fact that the seed
is a line long, and not particularly hard, aside from the
other facts in the case, renders such a hypothesis unreason-
able. Being an annual, the seed was scattered the previous
fall, and naturally starting, we may presume, about the time
the insects left, the species got the ascendency.

Some persons were quite alarmed at the prevalence of
large green and black worms, soon after the locusts left.
Feeding upon purslane and prevailing to an unusual
degree, because of the unusual prevalance of this plant,

112 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

they generally did good by keeping this weed down and |
converting it into manure. In some few instances, how- |
ever, they swarmed to such an extent as to devour all the
purslane, when they attacked grape-vines, and as Mr. Thos.
Wells, of Manhattan, Kansas, informs me, even cut off |
corn when it was about a foot high. These worms were _
the variable larvee of the White-lined Morning Sphinx, a
pretty moth often seen hovering over flowers at evening.
Most insects that naturally feed in spring above ground on

[ Fig. 19.]

WHITE-LINED MORNING SPHINX,

low vegetation were killed out, and the only species
unaffected by the visitation were those feeding on forest
trees, or living in the ground or in the trunks of trees.
The White-lined Morning Sphinx, was just issuing from
the pupa, which had remained undisturbed below ground,
when the locusts were leaving. It found the Purslane—its
favorite food-plant—everywhere springing up and abun-
dant, and its eggs were laid without difficulty, and the
young larve did not, in any case, lack for food. As a
consequence they prevailed to a remarkable degree.

CHA PEER: VL

NATURAL ENEMIES OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN
| LOCUST.

BIRDS AND OTHER VERTEBRATE ANIMALS.

Jr is fortunate for man that, as in the case of most nox-
ious insects, this locust is not without its numerous enemies.
Chickens, turkeys and hogs devour immense quantities,
and are happy during years of locust invasion, or whenever
these insects abound. Prairie chickens and quails devour
them with avidity, and even hunt for their eggs; swallows
and blackbirds pursue them unrelentingly ; the little snow
birds devour great quantities of eggs when these are
brought to the surface by the freezing and thawing of the
ground ; and the same may be said of almost all birds in-
habiting the Western country in winter ; for in the crops
of warblers, plovers, snipe and other birds killed by the
telegraph. wires in the vicinity of Lawrence, Kansas, my
friend, G. F. Gaumer, found these eggs last winter.

The good offices of birds are especially noticeable in
spring, when the young locusts are hatching in the lower
Mississippi Valley. Immense flocks of the different species
of blackbirds, of the Lapland Longspur (Plectrophanes
lapponicus) and of plover attend the hatching grounds,
and clear entire fields. In 1875, Prof. F. H. Snow, of
Lawrence, Kansas, found the young locusts in the gizzards

of the Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythro-
8 (113 )

114 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

cephalus), Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccygus Americanus), |}
Cat-bird (Mimus Carolinensis), Red-eyed Vireo ( Vireo |

olivaceus), Great-crested Flycatcher (Myiarchus crinitus), |
and Crow Blackbird ( Quiscalus versicolo”), species that had }
not been noticed to feed on them before. The Shrike, or
Butcher-bird, impales them upon thorns and other pointed |
substances ; and a number of other birds, as well as rep-
tiles—e. g., toads, frogs and snakes, and the Box-turtle—_
feed upon them ; while the Skunk, Striped Squirrel, and
the Field Mouse do good work in devouring the eggs.

INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS.

The full-grown insects are not infrequently infested with
a long, thread-like worm, well known by the popular name
of “‘ hair-worm,” and erroneously supposed by many good |
people to be animated horse hairs. Specimens are often
taken which are thrice as long as the locust from which
they come. These belong generically to either Gordius or |
Mermis. Mr. G. F. Gaumer has examined several speci-
mens infested with hair-worms, one of which was eighteen |
and a half inches long. I myself have taken a specimen
six and a half inches long, which proves, upon comparison,
to be our commonest species, Gordius aquaticus. But by
far the most effective helps in weakening the vast armies
of locusts are the parasitic and predaceous insects, albeit. ]
their work is perhaps less noticeable and less appreciated. |
Passing over the few—like certain species of Digger |
Wasps, belonging to the genus Scolia, which occasionally —
bury a few specimens as provision for their young ; vari- _
ous spiders ; the ferocious Asilus flies, which occasionally
pounce upon a specimen, and suck out its juices, and the |
omnivorous ant, which sometimes feeds on the eggs, and
on the weak, sickly and disabled hoppers—I will treat more
particularly of those parasitic and predaceous species which |

Natural Hnemies. 115

' render effective service to man in destroying the locust. For
practical purposes, these may be divided into those which
| attack the eggs and those which attack the active locust.

ANIMALS THAT ATTACK THE EGGS.

Tue Siixy Mire (T7rombidium sericeum, Say, Fig. 20.)—
This is a small scarlet animal about two lines long, which
has for some time been known to attack [Fig. 20.]
the eggs, and has particularly done good = #°S) amy gm
service in the more Northern States. In
parts of Minnesota it has in many places
reduced the eggs to a powder, and the = fiji; Ly \ My
ground has been alive with the little red, , LI i i on Es
active bodies. te

The accompanying figure’ represents
one about half grown. iy

This mite belongs to the genus Zrom- Susy MITE fue
bidium, only two N. A. species of which have been described
viz., the scabrum, Say, and the sericeum, Say. The descrip-
tions in both instances are very brief, and it is difficult to

_ say whether the species in question belongs to either, as
it varies considerably with age. It answers to sericeum,
however, so far as the description goes, and I prefer to
so refer it rather than describe it as new. The specimens
which I have examined have not been full grown, and the
pale red color which they possessed would doubtless have
intensified with age. Every European is familiar with the
Searlet Mite (7. holosericeum, L), which is common in the
soil of gardens in spring, and preys upon young larve of
various descriptions. In color, silkiness and habit it greatly
resembles our species, and may indeed be identical. All the
species of this genus are highly colored, and the Zrom-
bidium tinctorium found in Guinea and Surinam is. em-
ployed. as a dye.

116 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

The eggs of the Silky Mite, which are small, spherical |
and pale red, are laid in the ground in a loose mass of |
nearly 200. They become pear-shaped before hatching,
and the young mites are paler than the full grown individ-
uals and have but six legs, the hind pair being atrophied.
The following accounts of its work are worthy of place :

A discovery has been made of great interest. A small red bug
or spider, about the size of a small kernel of wheat, is found in
great numbers, creeping into the holes to the grasshopper eggs and
eating the contents of the eggs voraciously. Great numbers were
found in the act of eating the eggs, with empty egg-shells in the
same nest. The extent of the little friends is not limited, but they
have been seen in many localities in different directions in this
place. Mr. J.D. Johnston, Antrim, proved conclusively that these
red bugs are making sure work among the eggs —| -Wadelia (Minn.)
Times, 1874.

Last evening, when we reached Worthington from “ake Shetek,
there was quile an excitement in Worthington, owing to the fact
that the citizens were generally convinced that a red parasite was
destroying the grasshopper eggs. I examined the matter carefully
myself, and became convinced that the destruction of the eggs in
that immediate vicinity was well assured; but I determined not to
write you and excite any hope until a further and more complete
examination could be had. We therefore furnished our Bohemian
friends with a bottle of the eggs and their pests, and the commis-
sion left in high spirits. We postponed further investigation until
this morning, when I left and prosecuted the examination with
vigor. ‘The farmers in the vicinity knew nothing of these signs of
deliverance until the visitors from Worthington reached them, and
I feel safe in saying to you that in a circle of ten miles from
Worthington there will scarcely be an egg left by to-morrow night.
I send yuu a bottle herewith containing the cones and the parasites.
We could scarcely find a cone or sack, except as they were indi-
cated by the parasite on the surface; and each cone, which was not
entirely destroyed, had from five to fifty of the red laborers at work
upon the eggs. We found scores of cells with no eggs left, except
the shells.

* * * * * * x * * * * *

I stopped for fifteen minutes one and a half miles west of Wilder,
where Section Foreman Smith took me to that portion of his farm
where eggs were deposited. We could find none by general dig-
ging, but wherever we found, as we frequently did, the red parasite
on the surface, we found the cone beneath, with the parasite at
work consuming theeggs. * * * JI am aware that two years
ago this parasite was found working upon the eggs at Madelia and
other places, but here we have the remedy almost as soon as the

Natural Hnemies. VAG

eggs are laid, while in the former instances the parasite was only
_ discovered in the spring.—[Letter from Ex-Gov. Stephen Miller,
_ written from Windom, Minn., Aug. 15, 1876.

We send herewith a box of grasshopper eggs, together with the
* Silky Mite,” of which so much has been said. You can see a sam-
ple of the work they are doing. They are over the ground and in
it wherever eggs have been laid. They suck the eggs, Jeaving the
bare shell. We have talked with farmers from all parts of the
county, and they all tell the same story—not a cell to be found that
is net partially or wholly destroyed.

We have personally inspected them in more than twenty differ-
ent places, and are satisfied that in this county the eggs of the
festive G. H.are a ‘‘total wreck.” Allow us to suggest that you
call for a report from every county in the State that has been
infested by them.—[Letter to Pioneer Press and Tribune, from

Bell & Gruelle, Worthington, Nobles Co., Minn., Aug. 16, 1876.

I send, enclosed in a circular tin box, mailed with this, some
dirt containing grasshopper’s eggs, and also the ved mite or spider
that sucks them, as you will perceive on examination. I trust they
will be received in good order. I send them at the request of A.
Whitman, of St. Paul, of this State, with whom I am correspond-
ing sometimes on this grasshopper matter.—|[Letter from R. B.
Potts, U. 8. N., Worthington, Minn., Aug. 18, 1876.

Up to the autumn of 1876 the Silky Mite was the only
parasite that was known to attack the eggs of our locust,
though’ a small Chalcid-fly* had been bred by MaS7. He
Scudder, from those of the Carolina Locust, a large species
with blue and black hind wings ; and two Ichneumon-flies
were known to attack locust eggs in Europe. In 1876 I
found five new insect enemies attacking these eggs almost
everywhere throughout the infested country, and these I
will proceed to describe.

* Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., XII, p. 99. Mr. Scudder has kindly furnished
me with femalespecimens. They are about 0.20 inch long, pitchy black, the head
and thorax very deeply pitted and roughened, and the abdomen, which is flattened
and quite tapering, also deeply marked with irregular, longitudinal depressions.
The antennz have the scape as long as the flagellum, which is curved and enlarges
to tip, which is suddenly docked. The scape, basal joint of flagellum and legs are
honey-yellow ; the wings hyaline.

A similar, if not the same Chalcid, infests the eggs of spretus, for Mr. Potts
has sent me egg-masses in which every egg had a Chalcid pupa. Unfortunately,
they were too dry when received to permit of rearing the imago.

113) The Rocky Mountain Locust.

Tue AntHomyia Eee-Parasirr, (Anthomyia radicum,
var. caloptent.)—This is by far the most wide-spread and
generally useful of the different egg enemies. It has
occurred in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri
and Texas, and wherever I have examined the locust eggs,

ANTHOMYIA EGG-PARASITE:—a, fly, 6, pupa ec. larva from side, d, .ead of same
from above—enlarged.

whether in Missouri, Kansas or Nebraska, I have found it
destroying on an average about ten per cent. of them.

The following items will serve as samples of many others
that might be given, referring to the work of this same
parasite :

Recently a white worm or maggot has been discovered in the
locust eggs laid in this vicinity, and so general are the grubs that
we really look for a great diminution in next year’s locust crop.
About the time the hoppers began laying eggs we had a hard, soak-
ing rain, and since then we have had several more—the last this
morning. By this time the ground is well soaked with water and
the eggs were and are laid in earth that is quite moist. It is about
two weeks since the hoppers first reached Mankato, they have laid
many eggs, and already this worm or maggot has developed and
seems to be on the increase, being found in the egg cells, where it
sucks or destroys the egg. Some cells that I have opened have
had two and three worms in them.—[From a letter from J. C. Wise,
Mankato, Minn., August 20, 1876.

On the ninth I sent you a b»x of locust egg parasites, and to-day
I will send you some more of different sorts or different stages of de-

Natural Hnemies. 119

velopment or both. I find them more plentiful to-day than before.
‘The ground seems to be full of them, from five to twenty of the
small white worms in a single cell, one generally, though sometimes
two of the large white onesin acell. The reddish colored ones I
suppose are in a different stage of development, though the same
parasite. In every cell in which I have found any of those sent
you, the eggs were nearly or quite destroyed. But there is another,
and a far more destructive enemy, viz., the hot sun, which is hatch-
ing them out by the million, though the parasites may continue
their work after it ceases to operate. I shall be happy to do alll
can to aid you in your investigations.—[ Letter from C. E. Treadwell,
Rockport, Atchison county, October 16, 1876.

Yesterday we discovered on a warm southern exposure that our
locust eggs were hatching out maggots. We break open the cocoons
and the eggs on exposure to the sun for a few moments crawl away
aworm. In warm places along the nedges the earth is alive with
them. Is this a new development of the locust question? It would
seem to be a confirmation of the theory you promulgated, as I
understood it, at the time. JI secured a few of the perfect cocoons
which I enclose for your examination. We suppose these will do
as the others do upon exposure to the sun.

The people here are quite excited over the matter, hoping it
may be a solution of the problem for next year, at least, and have
deputed me to lay the matter before you. Any information you
can give us in regard to this our latest development, will be thank-
fully received and acknowledged.—[Letter from S. M. Pratt, M.D.,
Hiawatha, Brown County, Kansas, October 30, 1876. ;

Various reports have been circulated in regard to the destruction
of the eggs of the Rocky Mountain Locust (Culoptenus spretus) by
aworm. I am peppy, te state that these reports were substantiated
yesterday by Mr. McLockhead, of Deer Creek, Kanawaka, twelve
miles west of this city, who brought me a box of earth in which
the eggs of the ‘‘ hopper” had been abundantly deposited. To-day
a similar box was secured from W. B. Barnett, Esq., of Hiawatha,
Brown county. In both of these instances a large proportion of
the eggs have been destroyed by a small, white larva. Many of
the egg-cases, which ordinarily each contain from twenty to thirty
eggs, hadnoeggs in them, but were full of these worms or larve,
each one of which took the place of an egg which it had destroyed.
Some of the egg-cases contained only two or three larvee with more
than twenty sound eggs. I consider these to be the larve of a
parasitic Hymenopterous insect i" was subsequently verified as the
Anthomyia under consideration| which I hope to obtain in the
winged or perfect state, if 1 succeed in carrying them safely through
their transformation.—[ Prof. F. H. Snow, in Lawrence (Kansas)
Journal, November i, 1876.

This good little friend, which simultaneously prevailed
over so large an extent of country, is a small white mag-

120 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

got, (Fig. 21, c) of the same general form of the common
meat maggots or “gentles,” but measuring, when full grown
and extended, not quite one-fourth of an inch in length.
The head, with some of the anterior joints of the body,
tapers and is retractile, and the jaws consist of two small |
hooks joined to a V-shaped, black, horny piece which, as —
it is retracted or extended, plays beneath the transparent.
skin. The hind or tail end is squarely docked off, and
contains two small yellowish-brown, eye-like spots, which
are the principal spiracles or breathing pores.

These smail maggots are found in the locust egg-pods,
either singly or in varying numbers, there sometimes being
a dozen packed together in the same pod. They exhaust.
the juices of the eggs, and leave nothing but the dry and
discolored shells; and where they are not numerous
enough to destroy all the eggs in the pod, their work, in
breaking open a few, often causes all the others to rot.

When fed to repletion, this maggot contracts to a little
cylindrical, yellowish-brown pupa, (Fig. 21 6), about half
the length of the outstretched and full-grown larva, and
rounded at both ends. From this pupa, in the course of a
week in warm weather, and longer as the weather is colder,
there issues a small, grayish, two-winged fly (Fig. 21 a),
about one-fourth of an inch long, the wings expanding
about one-half of an inch, and in general appearance re-
sembling a diminutive house-fly, except that the body is.
more slender and more tapering behind, and the wings.
relatively more ample, More carefully examined, the body
is seen to be of an ash-gray color, tinged with rust-yellow,
and beset with stiff, bristle-like hairs, those on the thorax
stoutest, and those on the abdomen smaller but more uni-
tormly distributed. The wings are faintly smoky and
iridescent. There are three dusky longitudinal stripes on
the thorax, most distinct anteriorly, and another along the

Natural Hnemies. PAL

middle of the abdomen, most distinct in the male, which
also differs from the female in the larger eyes, which meet
much more closely on the top of the head than in the
female, and in the face being whiter. |

The winter is passed mostly in the pupa state, though
doubtless in some cases also in the winged state.

The flies of this genus are characterized by the shortness
of the antenne, and by the attenuated abdomen. The
characters given to it are, however, by no means uniform,
and as the species generally bear a very close resemblance
to each other, and there have been a large number de-
scribed in Europe (many of them very imperfectly), it
becomes almost an impossibility to properly determine
them. As the sexes often differ materially, it is also,
except where they are reared from the larva, difficult to
connect them ; and as the colors often become sordid and
dull in the cabinet, many of the described species have no
real existence.

The flies frequent flowers, and often congregate and play
in swarms in the air. Their eggs are white, smooth, oval, —
about 0.04 inch long, and are dropped near the food of the |
larva. In the larva state, these insects mostly feed on
leguminous plants, and the carnivorous habit is excep-
tional. The species affecting the cabbage, the onion, the
radish, etc., have received different names, as brassicae,
ceparum, raphani, etc., but several ot them doubtless
constitute but one species, A comparison of those reared
from the locust eggs with the descriptions of drassicw and
ceparum, has not enabled me to discover any constant dif-
ferences, and they should perhaps all be referred to radi-
cum, Linn. At all events, I feel that it is safest to define
the insect under consideration merely as a variety of that
species, leaving the proper determination of it to the
future monographer of the genus,

122 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

The probabilities are that, feedingnormally on the roots
of various plants, it found locust eggs to its liking, and
multiplied rapidly as a result of the abundance of such

eggs.

ANTHOMYIA RADICUM (Linn.) var. CALOPTENI.

Fgg—Oval, smooth, white, 0.04 inch long.

Larva—Skin unarmed, 0.24 inch long when extended, of the
normal form, the mandibular hooks black, quite conspicuous, and
diverging at base. Prothoracic spiracles elongate. Anal spiracles
minute, yellowish-brown, with the eight fleshy surrounding tuber-
cles, small.

Pupa—Pale-brown, rounded at each end, with the prothoracic
spiracles and lips anteriorly, and the anal spiracles and lower
tubercles posteriorly, showing as minute points.

Imago—?. Average expanse, 0.48 inch. General color ash-
gray, with a ferruginous hue, especially above, and a more or less
intense metallic reflection. Face with white reflections below; eyes
smooth, brown, encircled by the ground color, and this behind and
on forehead, bordered by a brown line; two similar lines at back
of head from upper corners of eyes, and approaching to neck;
forehead dusky brown, becoming bright yellowish-red toward base
of antenne, and the brown forking at right angles around occiput.
Trophi and antenne black, the style simple and somewhat longer
than the whole antenne. Thorax with three dusky longitudinal
lines, obsolete behind; legs black, with cinereous hue beneath ;
wings faintly smoky, with brown-black veins, the discal cross-
vein straight and transverse, the outer one bent and more oblique ;
balancers crumpled, yellowish. Abdomen with faint dusky medio-
dorsal spots, broad at base, tapering and obsolescing toward end
of each joint.

In the é, aside from the larger eyes, stronger bristles, and nar-
rower, less tapering abdomen, with its additional joint—all charac-
teristic of the sex—the face is whiter, and the medio-dorsal dark
mark of abdomen continues,

Described from 25 specimens of both sexes, reared from locust
egs-feeding larve.

Specimens bred from cabbage and radish roots, and others in my
cabinet, taken from the burrows (made in Osage Orange, in Mis-
souri), of Crabro stirpicola, Pack., do not differ specifically.

Natural Enemies. 123

THE Common Firsu Fry (Sarcophaga carnaria, L.)—
The red-tailed variety (sarracenie) of this ubiquitous
insect, described and figured further on, as preying on the
locust, also attacks its eggs. It is a larger maggot than
the preceding, and contracts to a darker pupa which is
not similarly rounded at each end, but has the hind end
truncate, and the front end tapering. It sucks the eggs,
as does the Anthomyia larva, but the parent fly is probably
attracted principally to those which are addled or injured,
as the pods in which I have found it have very generally
been in a fluid state of decay. From three quarts of eggs
T have obtained twenty-six of these flies.

UNDETERMINED Sprcies.—Next to the Anthomyia Egg-
parasite in importance is a much larger, more sluggish,

[ Fig 222] yellowish grub (Fig. 22),

a measuring about half an

inch when _ extended,
WM. which is found within or
“"IN§ beneath the locust eggs,
lying in acurved position,
the body being bent so
that the head and tail
nearly touch each other.
UNDETERMINED EGG-PARASITE OF R. M. It is a smooth grub, with
OE a: a very small, brown, flat-

tened head, with the joints near the head swollen, and the
hind end tapering, and with deep, translucent sutures
beneath the joints, which sutures show certain vinous
marks and mottlings, especially along the middle of the
back. It exhausts the eggs, and leaves nothing but the
shrunken and discolored shells. It has not yet been reared
to the perfect state, but from the structure of its mouth
it is evidently Hymenopterous, and will produce, without .
much doubt, some Ichneumon-fly. It has been found in

124 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri, and has destroyed
about one per cent. of the eggs.
The following letters refer to this species :

The other day, as I was strolling through the fields, I stopped to
examine someeggs. JI found the ground in spots quite full of white
grubs, worms or maggots, whatever they may be called. Many of
them were in the egg-pods, busy at work. I collected a few, and
sent to you in a small vial by mail for your examination. The
ground was high and dry where found.—|From 8. D. Payne, Ka-
sota, Le Sueur County, Minn., Sept. 28, 1876.

I think the Silky Mite has done good service in destroying eggs
in one or two counties, particularly Nobles. But we are getting, in
addition, continual newspaper reports of white grubs destroying the
eggs. if started out to see for myself, and have found a number,
which I send you.—[From A. Whitman, St. Paul, Minn., Sept. 1,
1876.

This grub is found of various sizes as winter sets in,
and hibernates without change. It will doubtless be reared
to the perfect state the coming summer, and I give a more
detailed description herewith.

Average length, 0.50 inch. Body curved, glabrous, tapering pos-
teriorly, swollen anteriorly. Color opaque whitish, with translucent
yellowish mottlings, and some vinous marks at sutures, especially
along medio-dorsum. Sutures deep. A lateral row of swellings.
Head small, flattened, dark-brown, in five pieces, consisting above
of a frontal ovoid piece, and two lateral pieces of somewhat similar
form, and each bearing near tip a minute, two-jointed palpus; be-
neath of two broad, sub-triangular jaws, having forward and lateral
motion, and each also bearing near the center, in a depression, a
two-jointed feeler. A spiracle each side in a fold between joints
2 and 3, andanother on each side of the penultimate joint, 12. None
otherwise perceptible.

Besides the three preceding species which were found
destroying the eggs in 1876, and which, from their being
generally found within the egg-pod, may be called parasitic,
though they are not strictly so, I have also found the
larvee of two species of Ground-beetles (Carabide) attack-
ing said eggs. One pale species (Fig. 23), evidently be-

Natural Hnemies. 125

longing to the genus Harpalus, is more particularly com-
mon, and busy in the good work. It is an active creature,
something over half an inch long, with powerful jaws and
a light-brown head and prothorax, and the rest of the body
pale, tapering posteriorly, [ Fig. 23.]
and ending in a stout Vie es
proleg and two articulate
appendages. Tor the en-
tomological reader I ap-
pend a more detailed de-
scription :

Color yellowish white; pro-
thorax and head highly pol-
ished yellowish-brown, the
jaws darker. Head broad,
depressed and rugose in front;
jaws broad, robust, dark, and
with but one strong middle

‘tooth; antenne 5 jointed,
joints 4 and 5 scarcely equaling
3 in length ; maxille elongate,
sub-cylindrical, with a 4-joint-
ed outer and a 2-jointed in- N

HARPALUS? LARVA THAT PREYS ON LoO-
ner palpus ; mentum elongate, cust Eaes:—a. larva from above, 0b. head,
fcmvace soldered with the ‘om bencatlt, cee —en'arecd.
lower head; labrum also elongate and with 2-jcinted palpi; all trophi
armed with stiff hair. Prothoracic joint, swollen, wider than head,
twice as long as succeeding joint, horny, and with a darker anterior
border, Jimited by a transverse stria posteriorly and marked with fine
longitudinal striz. Legs, except coxe, dark brown and thickly
beset with short, spinous bristles of the same color. Abdomen
tapering to end, with no horny plates, but each joint with two
transverse rows of stiff yellowish hairs, the posterior rows strongest.
Anal proleg stout, the cerci 4-jointed (joints 3 and 4 small and im-
perfectly separated) and reaching but little beyond it ; eyes small,
dark, and just behind base of antenne. Length of largest speci-
mens 0.58 inch.

Eight specimens feeding on eggs of Caloptenus spretus.

126 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

The other Ground-beetle, belonging probably to the
same genus as the above, is of about the same size and has
precisely the same structure. It is at once distinguished,
however, by a series of broad, dark-brown, horny plates
along the back, by paler horny pieces along the sides and
beneath; by the darker, somewhat narrower prothorax; by

[ Fig. 24.] the pale legs,
and by the
shorter anal

\ ewe : =“ cerci. I have
ae 7d A= founeree

2(s) zie) : specimens of
this last feed-

HaRPALUS? Larva :—B. under-side of head; #.7,j, under-side ,
of different joints of body. ing on the

a(S sa | &

SS

eggs, and one was sent to me as having the same
habit, by Mr. Whitman, of St. Paul. Mr. G. F. Gaumer
has sent me what he took to be a minute Rove-beetle
(Staphylinide) found feeding on the eggs, and they prove
to be newly hatched specimens of the above Carabid
larva. 3

It is probable that most of the Carabid larve will feed
on the eggs, and I introduce the figure of a larger species
(Fig. 24) and its probable parent, the Pennsylvania
Ground-beetle (Harpalus pennsylvanicus, De Geer, Fig.25).
I have every reason to believe, also, that certain Click-
beetle larve (Hlateride) and certain Myriapods devour the
eggs, while I have actually caught the common White
Grub (larva of Lachnosterna fusca) feeding upon them.

INSECTS THAT DESTROY THE ACTIVE LOCUST.

In a general way it may be stated that all the larger
predaceous species prey on the locusts. The Ground-
beetles (Carabide) are conspicuous among these, and the
Fiery Calosoma (Fig. 26) and the Elongate Ground-beetle.

insects found preying upon it that

Natural Enemies. 12%

(Fig. 27) are two of our largest and most common
species.

[ Fig. 25.] [ Fig. 26.]

PENNSYLVANIA GROUND-BEETLE. CALOSOMA CALIDUM, with larva.

Mr. H. A. Brous, who, while in Western Kansas in 187 6,
made careful notes of everything he observed relating to

the Rocky Mountain Locust, has sent me a number of
[ Fig. 28.]

\ «a "
4 Ae Si
| / .

= NSE

=
> JY
Nee.

PASIMACHUS ELONGATUS.

had not before been observed at
such work. Among them are
VanMoustAvsilus-uies, and several’ Awe, voais cvLINDRIFORMIS.

* Stenopogon consanguineus, Loew, a species with pale yellowish hairs on
head and thorax, yellowish-brown wings and pale rufous legs and abdomen; Pro-
machus apivora, Fitch ; Hrax Bastardit (Fig. 29); several allied species of Hrax,
and a species of Tolmerus.

128 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

Ground-beetles and Tiger-beetles.* More particularly
noteworthy among these last is that large and most ele-
gant dark-brown species which I herewith figure (Fig. 28),
and which has been esteemed as a great rarity among
Coleopterists. Mr. Brous found it much more common
than it was generally supposed, and attributes its reputed
[ Fig. 29.] rarity to its secretive and nocturnal
habits. It lives in holes in clayey
banks, and issues in search of food
==> only at night or early morn. Of
Heteroptera, there is a Soldier-bug
of the genus Apiomerus and allied
to crassipes ; and of Hymenoptera
there are two Ichneumons—a Com-
poplex and Ephialtes notanda, Cress.
—that were noticed pursuing the
eae Ce locusts, and are possibly parasitic
b, puba. upon them. The Preying Mantis
(Mantis Carolina, L.) has also been observed feeding on
them.
The full grown locusts are subject to the attacks of the
following parasites:
[ Fig, 30.] TuE Locust Mirze (Astoma_ gryliaria,
ar LeBaron, Fig. 30.)—This mite, though insig-
- nificant in the matter of size, is nevertheless
a most efficient enemy. Almost every one
who has paid any attention to the locusts must
have noticed that they are often more or less
covered, especially around the base of the
Tue Locusr wings, with small red mites, seldom larger

MITE, greatly en- - =
larged. than the head of a pin. ‘These mites have

* Pasimachus elongatus, Lec. ; P. punctulatus, Hald. ; Calosoma obsoletum,
Say ; Cicindela pulchra, Say ; C. scutellaris, Say; C. 6-guttata, Fabr.; C. fulgida,
Say; C. vulgaris, Say; C. circumpicta, Laf.; C. formosa, Say; C. punctulata,
Fabr.

Natural Hnemies. 129

but six legs which, though easily visible when the animal
first attaches itself, become more or less obsolete and in-
visible as it swells and enlarges, though a careful examin-
ation will generally reveal them at the anterior end of the
body. The mite, therefore, more often presents to the
ordinary observer a bright red, swollen, ovoid body, so
immovable and firmly attached by its minute jaws, that
those who are not aware of its nature might easily be led
into believing it a natural growth or excrescence. In
fact, it attacks the locust precisely as the different wood-
ticks attack man and the lower mammals.

This mite belongs to the genus Astoma, briefly charac-
terized by Latreille for a very similar mite (Astoma para-
siticum) which affects the common House-fly and several
other insects. The specific name Jocustarum was first pro-
posed for it by B. D. Walsh,* but Dr. LeBaron afterwards
gave it the name of Atoma gryllaria,t in connection with
_the following more detailed description :

They are of an oblong, oval form, moderately convex and having
an uneven surface, produced by four shallow depressions on the
upper side, the two larger near the middle, and the others behind
them. The body has also two slight constrictions, giving it the
appearance of being divided into three segments ; but the im-
pressions are superficial and only visible at the sides. The whole
surface is finely striate, under the microscope, the striz running in
a waving transverse direction. The mouth-organs appear to be
reduced to their minimum of development, The only part visible,
externally, is a minute papilla, on each side of which are two
bristles, the inner of which is stouter, tapering to an acute point,
and curved inwards, or toward its fellow of the opposite side.
They differ from the majority of Acarides in having but six legs,
and these, being of but little use in so stationary a creature, are

* Practical Entomologist, I, p. 126.
t+ LeBaron’s 2nd Ill. Ent. Rep., 1872, p.156. Theauthor employs the term Atoma,
which, though at first so employed by Latreille, is corrected to Astoma in his ‘‘Gen-
era Crustaceorum et Insectorum,”’ I, p. 162, (1806). ~
9

130 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

}
)
i
\

short and slender, projecting but little beyond the outline of the §
body. They are 6-jointed [in reality they are but 5-jointed, the |
middle joint much the shortest, and the terminal joint longest.— |
Cc. v. R.], garnished with short stiff bristles, and terminate in two |
slender, curved hooks. The anterior and middle legs are closely
approximate and situated near the anterior extremity of the body; §
the posterior are set a little nearer to each other, and a little in ad-
vance of the middle of the body, being inserted at the posterior part
of the anterior division or lobe. Four hairs project from the pos-
terior extremity of the body.

[ Fig. 31.J The dorsal figure just given (Fig. 30,) ex-
2 hibits the general appearance of the mite
under a high magnifying power, and figure
31 which represents a ventral view of the mite
found on our house-flies, and which is doubt- |
less the A. parasiticum of Latreille, will |
g better show the structure of the head and
Astoma, parasite legs. During some seasons scarcely a fly can |
of the House-fly. . : : é |
be caught that is not infested with a number >
of these blood-red mites, clinging tenaciously around the
base of the wings.

The genus Astoma (and the same is probably true of
most other six-legged genera) is only the larval or imma.
ture form of some other mite ; and this very Locust Mite
may be the larva of the Silky Mite previously described,
tor aught we know to the contrary—so much is there yet
to learn of the transformations of the mites. Indeed,
Hermann, and some other arachnologists have actually |
referred Astoma to Trombidium. In speaking of the Irri-
tating Harvest Mite (Zeptus irritans, Riley, 6th Rep., p. |
122)—the so-called Jigger of the Mississippi Valley, which ©
is, in all probability, also an immature form—TI have stated |
my belief that its normal food must, apparently, consist of |
the juices of plants, and that “the love of blood proves |
ruinous to those individuals who get a chance to indulge |

Natural Enemies. 131

it ; for unlike the true chigoe, the female of which deposits
eggs in the wound she makes, these harvest mites have no
object of the kind, and, when not killed at the hands of
those they torment, they soon die—victims to their san-
guinary appetite.”"* The same argument may, I think,
be applied to the Locust Mite. |

The Rocky Mountain Locust infested with this mite was
sent to me in 1868 by Uriah Bruner, of Omaha, Neb., and
in 1869 by Clark Irvine and C. Twine, of Oregon, T. K.
Faulkner, of Whitesville, and Jno. P. Dopf, of Rock Port,
Mo.,—the latter gentleman stating that it was fast causing
a diminution in the ranks of the common enemy. I have
also received it from Minnesota and Kansas, and found it
on several of our native locusts ; while the following pas-
sage from an editorial account of the ravages of locusts in
Kansas in 1869, which appeared in the Prairie Farmer,
(Aug. 21, 1869,) is a sample of many newspaper accounts,
and will show how efficient even a mite may be in killing:

The course of the locusts was brought to a sudden halt by the
operation of some parasite, appearing in the shape of small red
mites, which attach themselves to the body, under the wings, where
they suck the carcass to a dry shell; the dead bodies of the grass-
hoppers almost covering some plants, where they have taken hold
of a leaf or stalk, and clasped it, with a dead embrace; many others
fall to the ground to die, too weak to rise again. Ina half day’s
examination, where they were very thick, we failed to find more than
two grasshoppers not so attacked, and this was not local; for a dis-
tance of thirty miles across the country they were found similarly
affected.

Tux Anonymous Tacuina-FLy.—Our locust, like so many
other insects, is also subject to the attacks of certain two-
winged flies much resembling the common House-fly, but
larger. One is the very same Tachina-fly (Zachina anon-
yma) which I have bred from a number of other insects.t+

* Am. Naturalist, Vol. VII, p. 19.
+ See Mo. Ent. Repts., 4, p, 129, and 5, p. 133.

132 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

I first reared this fly from specimens of the Rocky Moun-
tain Locust sent me by Jos. C. Shattuck, Supt. of Public
Instruction, Greeley, Col., who, July 14, 1873, wrote of
its work as follows :

* © Also, I will say that the grasshoppers which a month
since seriously threatened to devour every green thing, have met
with a mortal foe and been slain by millions. (Don’t think “ mil-
lions” too large a word.) Very few have taken to ‘‘ themselves
wings and flown away,” as heretofore, but lie dead in the fields
they lately ravaged. A small fly pierces them and deposits an egg
while on the wing, (or on the jump), and, like Herod of old, ‘‘ they
are eaten of worms and give up the ghost.”

The following items refer to the same insect:

A Grasshopper-Hxterminating Fly.—-It seems that the grasshop-
pers that are so destructive to vegetation in many places in the
central portion of the continent, are likely to find an enemy which
threatens their rapid destruction. The Deer Lodge Independent
says that a fly has made its appearance, closely resembling the com-
mon house-fly, but much larger, and of a gray, mottled color, which
deposits its eggs under the wings of the grasshopper. The egg is
enclosed in a glutinous substance, which secures it in its position
until the worm is matured [embryon developed]. It then pene-
trates the body of the grasshopper, which speedily dies. The
worm then burrows in the ground, and at the end of seventeen days
comes forth a fly, ready to again commence the work otf destruc-
tion. Mr. Wm. Walker, of Dempsey Creek, informs the /ndepend-
ent that twice during the past summer the grasshoppers threatened
to destroy his crops, but the flies killed them so rapidly that they
did him but little damage. As the grasshoppers were killed before
depositing their eggs, it is generally believed that this plague is
ended in the Deer Lodge Valley.—[ Published in several Montana
papers in the summer of 1874.

A great many of the locusts seemed to be punctured on the back,
and on pulling their heads off after death (many were found dead)
from one to three ordinary looking maggots would be found. Many
farmers fear it might be an introduction of a new plague. May
not this gentleman with his little gimlet in time prove the destroyer
of the hateful locust?—[R. P. C. Wilson, Platte City, Mo., in pri-
vate letter.

I saw a hopper kicking about as if he could hardly move; I
pulled him to pieces and found that he contained a footless grub,
half an inchin length. In a short time more were procured, placed
in a covered tumbler, where, in a little more than two weeks, the
grubs changed to Tachina flies, very much resembling the common
house-flies. * * When we remember what an enormous number
of eggs (fly-blows) a fly will lay, and that each, in about a month, will

Natural Hnemies. igo

be a perfect fly, it is seen that it would take but a few generations
to clean out an army of grasshoppers.—[Oscar J. Strong, Rolfe,
Pocahontas County, lowa, in Western Farmer, Feb., 1869.

Mr. Byers, in speaking of the locusts hatching in Colo-
rado in 1865, (doc. cit.) says: “ That upon attaining about
half their full size, they were attacked by a fly, which,
stinging them in the back between the roots of the wings,
deposited one or more eggs, which produced a large white
maggot. The worm subsisted upon the grasshopper, finally
causing its death, when it cut its way out and entered the
earth. In this way probably half were destroyed, often
covering the ground, and filling the furrows in plowed
fields with their carcasses. The remainder, when their
wings were sufficiently developed, took to flight, moving
southeast, and we lost trace of them on the great Plains.”

Mr. J. W. Crow, of Bigelow, Mo., in his correspondence
with me, describes these maggots as infesting the “hop-
pers” in Holt county in the fall of 1876; and in 1869 I
received the parasite from John P. Dopf, of Rock Port,
Atchison County, Mo., and have bred it from the Differen-
tial Locust, figured further on, and from the Carolina Lo-
cust (&dipoda carolina, J.) in St. Louis County.

Finally, Mr. 8. E. Wilber, of Greeley, Col., has published
an account of what is evidently the same fly.* In this
account, after showing how persistently the fly pursues
the locust—leaving it no rest, and so effectually weaken-
ing whole swarms as to render them harmless—he expresses
the opinion that the constant importunities and annoyances
of this fly are the cause of locust migrations. While,
however, they may constitute a factor in the result, such a
conclusion is too sweeping.

The Yellow-tailed Tachina-fly (Hzorista flavicauda, Ri-
ley, Fig. 32) which is so useful in destroying the Army-

* Popular Science Monthly, IV, p. 745.

134 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

worm, will serve to illustrate the species, and, indeed,
differs from it very little except in being somewhat larger,
and in having the tip of the abdomen yellow.
These Tachina-flies firmly fasten their eggs—which are
[Fig. 32.] oval, white and opaque, and
quite tough—to those parts of
the body not easily reached by
the jaws and legs of their vic-
tim, and thus prevent the egg
from being detached. The
slow-flying locusts are attack-
ed while flying, and it is quite
amusing to watch the frantic
YELLOW-TAILED TACHINA-FLY. efforts which one of them,
haunted by a Tachina-fly, will make to evade its enemy.
The fly buzzes around, waiting her opportunity, and
when the locust jumps or flies, darts at it and attempts
to attach her egg under the wing or on the neck. The
attempt frequently fails, but she perseveres until she usu-
ally accomplishes her object. With those locusts which
fly readily, she has even greater difficulty ; but though the
locust tacks suddenly in all directions in its efforts to avoid
her, she circles close around it and generally succeeds in
accomplishing her purpose, either while the locust is yet
on the wing, or, more often, just as it alights from a flight
orahop. The young maggots hatching from these eggs
eat into the body of the locust, and after rioting on the
fatty parts of the body—leaving the more vital parts
untouched—they issue and burrow in the ground, where
they contract to brown, egg-like pupz, from which the fly
issues either in the same season or not till the followmg
spring. A locust infested with this parasite is more lan-
guid than it otherwise would be; yet it seldom dies till
the maggots have left. Often in pulling off the wings of

Natural Hnemies. 135

such as were hopping about, the bodies have presented the
appearance of a mere shell, filled with maggots ; and so
efficient is this parasite that the ground in parts of the
Western States is often covered with the Rocky Mountain
Locust dead and dying from this cause.

THE Common Fixsu-Fry (Sarcophaga carnaria, Linn.)
—This fly, which is at once distinguished from the Tach-
ina-fly by the style of
the antenna, being hairy
(Fig. 33, 7,) instead of
smooth, is also a great
enemy of the Rocky
Mountain Locust,
though I think it must

be looked upon more as

- SARCOPHAGA SARRACENI :—@, larva; b, pupa: c¢,

a scavenge! than as an fy, the Bote MessbONInE ay craee matural lengths 3
: es , enlarged head and first joint of larva, showing
active pal asite, and curved hooks, lower lip (g) and prothoracic spir-
° = acles : eé, end of body of same, showing stigmata

that 1t 1s attracted (7) and prolegs and vent; 2, tarsal claws of fly,

: with pecs pads; i, antenna of same—en-
more especially to those Jareea.

specimens which are feeble or already dead. I have
received it among the Tachina parasites sent by Mr. Shat-
tuck, from Colorado, and from Professor C. E. Bessey, of
Ames, Iowa, who bred it from the Differential Locust, and
published the following description of its work :

A COMMENDABLE FLy.—During the summer I noticed that many
of the large yellow grasshoppers ( Caloptenus differentialis) were in-
fested by the maggot of a species of fly very nearly resembling, if
not identical with, the common Flesh-fly (Sarcophaga carnaria.)
Many of the grasshoppers were almost completely eaten out when
found, retaining just sufficient strength to hop feebly over the
ground. I estimate that this particular species of grasshopper was
diminished in numbers at least one-tenth, possibly one-eighth, by
these new friends. It isto be hoped that these new parasites will
increase rapidly. Professor C. V. Riley.informs me that the Mi-
gratory Locust (Caloptenus spretus) is also infested by a similar one.
Thus far, however, I have failed to detect any in the specimens
collected in this vicinity.

136 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

I have also bred it from a number of our native locusts
whose carcasses—forsaken by the sarcophagous larve—
may quite frequently be seen fastened to the upright stems
of different plants in the fall of the year. I have also bred
it from the common Carolina Mantis,* which it attacked
while living, and have known it to infest the common
Walking-stick (Spectrum femoratum). Indeed, the spe-
cies is a most widely-spread and general scavenger, occur-
ring in most civilized countries, and feeding, as a rule,
on dead and decaying animal matter, and only exception-
ally on living insects. By way of illustrating its trans-
formations, I introduce a figure of the Sarracenia Flesh-fly
which feeds on the dead insects caught in those curious
traps, the trumpet leaves (Sarracenia), and which is
probably only a variety (sarracenie, Riley) of carnaria.t
These flies lay elongate and delicate eggs, which hatch
very quickly. They sometimes hatch, in fact, within the
ovaries, so that the fly gives birth to living larve. These
are distinguished from those of the Tachina-flies by being
more concave and truncated at the posterior end (see Fig.
33, a). The Tachina larva is rounded posteriorly, with a_

* On the 18th of October, 1868, at South Pass, IIl., I found fastened to a tree
a large female Mantis, still alive, but with the abdomen hanging down, partially
decomposed and filled with Sarcophaga larve. These remained in the larva state
in the ground till the next July, but gave forth the flies at the end of that month.
The flies marked in my cabinet Sarcophaga carnaria, var. mantivora, differ in no
respect from the common carnaria, except in size, seven not averaging more
than 0.20 inch in Jength.

+ The flies bred from Caloptenus have the tip of the abdomen reddish, as in
Sarcophaga sarracenieé, and indeed are undistinguishable from the smaller speci-
mens Of this last. The larva differs, however, in having the surface more coarsely
granulated, it being regularly and uniformly covered with minute papille ; in the
less conspicuous, prothoracic spiracles; in the smaller but deeper anal cavity ; and
in the rim of this cavity having the twelve tubercles more conspicuous. The
pupa also has the anal cavity smalier, more closed, but deeper; and the prothoracic
spiracles less prominent. In these respects it agrees more closely with the typical
carnaria, as described by Packard, and I have little doubt but all these differences
are simply varietal.

Natural Enemies. L3¢

small, spiracular cavity, easily closed and having a smooth
rim: it contracts to a pupa, which is quite uniformly
rounded at each end. The Sarcophaga larva is more
truncate behind, with fleshy warts on the rim of the spirac-
ular cavity, and with a more tapering head: it contracts
to a pupa, which is also truncate behind, and more taper-
ing in-front, where the prothoracic spiracles show as they
never do in Tachina.

CHAPTER VIIL

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS.

HOW BEST TO PREVENT LOCUST INJURIES.

THE means to be employed against the ravages of this
| insect in the more fertile country subject to its periodical
'visitations, but in which it is not indigenous, may be
| classed under five heads: 1, Encouragement of natural
| agencies ; 2, Artificial means of destroying the eggs ; 3,
| Artificial means of destroying the unfledged young ; 4,
| Remedies against the mature or winged insects ; 5, Pre-
| vention. ,
ENCOURAGEMENT OF NATURAL ENEMIES.

The natural enemies enumerated in Chapter VII should
be encouraged as far as it is possible to encourage them. -
Man can do little to aid the multiplication of the more
minute animals and parasites, but much to assist that of
the larger animals, especially the birds mentioned. These
should be protected by stringent laws, firmly carried out,
restraining the wanton destruction in which sportsmen so
often indulge. During the past few years, several of the
“Western ” States have passed good laws for the protec-
tion of our feathered friends, but the laws are often a dead-

letter for want of enforcement.

DESTRUCTION OF THE EGGS.

The fact that man can accomplish most in his warfare

against locusts by destroying the eggs has long been
(139 )

140 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

recognized by European and Asiatic governments liable to _
suffer from the insects. The eggs, as we have seen, are 1
laid in masses, just beneath the surface of the ground,
seldom toa greater depth than an inch; and high, dry
ground is preferred forthe purpose. Very often the ground
is so completely filled with these egg-masses, that not a
spoonful of the soil can be turned up without exposing
them, and a harrowing or shallow plowing will cause the
surface to look quite whitish as the masses break up and
bleach from exposure to the atmosphere. Great numbers
will be destroyed by such harrowing or plowing, as there-
by not only are they more liable to the attacks of natural
enemies, but they lose vitality through the bleaching
and desiccating influence of the dew and rain and sun.
Wherever hogs and cattle can be turned into fields where
the eggs abound, most of these will be destroyed by the
rooting and tramping.

EXPERIMENTS WITH THE EGGS, AND CONCLUSIONS DRAWN
THEREFROM.

There are many questions respecting the manner in which
the eggs of this locust are affected under different condi-
tions, which are of intense practical interest, and which are
frequently discussed with no definite result being arrived
at, and no positive conclusion drawn. Such are, for
instance, the influence of temperature, moisture and dry-
ness upon them; the effects of exposing them to the air,
of breaking open the pods, of harrowing or plowing them
under at different depths, of tramping upon them. LEvery-
thing, in short, that may tend to destroy them or prevent
the young locusts hatching, is of vital importance. With
a view of settling some of these questions, and in the hope
of reaching conclusions that might prove valuable, I carried
on, during the past winter, a series of experiments, some

Practical Considerations. 141

ier which are herewith summed up. By reference to the
meteorological table given on p. 152, the exact temperature
jj, at any of the dates mentioned, up to March 10, can be
||; ascertained. |

| EXPERIMENTS TO TEST THE EFFECTS OF ALTERNATELY
' Freezing anp THawinc.—The eggs in the following
| series of experiments were obtained early in November,
at Manhattan, Kansas, under similar conditions. They
‘were mostly in a fluid state at the time, and none but
good and perfect masses were used. They were all
! carefully placed in the normal position at the surface
of the ground, in boxes that could be easily removed
from place to place. The experiments commenced No-
vember 10th, 1876, and ended in April, 1877. Dur-
ing November and December the weather was severe,
while during January and February it was largely mild
and genial for the season. In March again there was much
frost.

The temperature in my office, into which all the eggs
when not exposed were brought, ranged during the day
from 65° to 70° F., rarely reaching to 75°. During the
_ night it never dropped below 40°, and averaged about 55°.

Haperiment 1.—Fifty egg-masses were exposed to frost from
November 10th to January 10th, and then takenin-doors. In twenty
days they commenced hatching, and continued to do so for thirty-
eight days thereafter.

Haperiment 2.—Fifty egg-masses exposed at the same time to
frost. Brought in-doors on December 10th. On December 31st they
commenced hatching numerously and continued to hatch till the
10th of January, 1877, when the remainder were exposed again.
The weather being subsequently mild, some hatched on each warm
day until the 26th. None hatched thereafter, and upon examina-
tion, subsequently, all were found to have hatched.

Experiment 3.—Fifty egg-masses exposed atsametime. Brought
in-doors December ist. Kept there till the 22d without any of them

142 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

hatching. Exposed again for three weeks, and then brought in- |
doors on the 12th of January. They commenced hatching two }
days thereafter, and continued till the 29th. Subsequent exam-
ination showed them all to have hatched.

Eapervment 4.—One hundred egg-pods exposed at the same time,
but alternately brought in-doors and exposed again every fourteen |
days. Some commenced hatching during the second term in-doors;
others continued during the warm days of the third exposure, and
all had hatched by the sixth day of the third term in-doors.

Experiment 5.—A lot of one hundred egg-masses alternately ex-
posed and brought in-doors every week. During the first four terms
of exposure they were continuously frozen, while during the next
four the weather was frequently mild enough to permit hatching.
They first began to hatch during the fourth term in-doors, and con-
tinued to hatch, except during the colder days when exposed, until
the seventh term in-doors, during which the last ones escaped.

Experiment 6.—Many hundred egg-masses kept out-doors the
whole time, first commenced hatching March 2d, and continued
for thirty-eight days thereafter.

Experiment '7.—Many hundred pods, kept in-doors till December
15th, and hatching from November 28th up to that time, were then
exposed, and continued to hatch whenever the weather permitted,
up to April 10th. °

Experiment 8.—A lot of one hundred pods that had been hatching
in-doors from November 19th, were exposed to frost January 15th,
and brought in-doors again January 28th, where they continued
hatching till February 10th. Every one was subsequently fonnd
to have hatched.

Expervment 9.—A lot of one hundred under same conditions as
in Experiment 8, up to January 28th. They were then exposed

_again and brought in-doors February 16th, when they commenced
hatching and continued to do so till the 27th. All were found sub-
sequently to have hatched.

Two important conclusions are deducible from the above
experiments :

First—The eggs are far less susceptible to alternate freez-
ing and thawing than most of us, from analogy, have been
inclined to believe. Those who have paid attention to the

Practical Considerations. 148

subject, know full well that the large proportion of insects

_ that hibernate on or in the ground, are more injuriously

affected by a mild, alternately freezing and thawing winter,
than by a steadily cold and severe one; and the idea has
quite generally prevailed, that it was the same with regard
to our locust eggs. But, if so, then it is more owing to the
mechanical action which, by alternate expansion and con-
traction of the soil, heaves the pods and exposes them,
than to the effects of the varying temperatures.

Second—That suspended development by frost may
continue with impunity for varying periods, after the em-
bryon is fully formed and the young insect is on the verge
of hatching. Many persons, having in mind the well
known fact that birds’ eggs become addled if incubation
ceases before completion, when: once commenced, would,
from analogy, come to the same conclusion with regard to
the locust eggs. But analogy here is an unsafe guide.
The eggs of insects hibernate in all stages of embryonic
development, and many of them with the larva fully formed
and complete within. The advanced development of the
locust embryo, frequently noticed in the fall, argues nothing
but very early hatching as soon as spring opens. Their
vitality is unimpaired by frost.

EXPERIMENTS TO TEST THE [INFLUENCE OF MoIstuRE UPON
THE EKees.—The following series of experiments was made
with eggs also brought from Manhattan, Kansas. They
were dug up in December, and were sound, and much in the
same condition as those in the preceding series.

The water in all but the last three, or Experiments 23,
24 and 25, was kept in my office at the temperature already
stated, and changed only when there was the least tendency
tobecome foul. In the alternate submergence and draining,
the eggs were submitted to the most severe hygrometric

144 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

changes ; the warm atmosphere of the room having great
drying power.

Experiment 10.—Ten egg-masses kept under water in-doors from
December 5th to December 26th, 1876, the water becoming quite
foul. They were then removed to earth and kept in a hatching
temperature. They commenced hatching January 11th, 1877, and
continued to do so till. February 5th—all having hatched.

Experiment 11.—Twenty egg-masses kept under water in-doors
from December 26th, 1876, till January 2d, 1877 ; then left dry till
the 9th ; then submerged again till the 16th, when they were drained
again. On the 20th, eighteen young hatched, and others continued
hatching till the 23d, when they were submerged again. From the
26th to 30th, a few hatched under water, successfully getting rid of
the post-natal pellicle, and living for some hours afterward in the
water. On the 30th they were drained again, and continued to
hatch. On February 6th, they were again immersed, and continued
to hatch on the 7th. On the 15th, 22d, 29th, and March 7th, they
were alternately drained and immersed ; but none hatched after
February 7th, and the remainder proved upon examination to have
been destroyed, most of them being quite rotten.

Experiment 12.—Two egg-masses taken from the lot in Experi-
ment 11, on February 7th, and placed in moist earth. Every egg
subsequently hatched.

Heperiment 13.—Two egg-masses taken from the lot in Experi-
ment 11, on February 22d, and placed in moist earth. All hatched.

Experiment 14.—Twenty egg-masses alternately immersed and
drained every two weeks from December 26th till March 6th. None
hatched, but three-fourths of the eggs were at this date sound, -
the embryon full-formed and active as soon as released, but pale,
and evidently too feeble to burst the egg-shell. The rest were
killed and more or less decomposed.

Huperiment 15.—Two egg-masses, after immersion for two weeks,
were placed in moist earth. They began hatching twenty-two days
afterward, and continued to do so for six days. It wassubsequently
found that only seven out of forty-eight eggs had collapsed and
failed to hatch.

Experiment 16.—Two egg-masses immersed for two weeks and
drained for two weeks; then placed in moist earth. Six days after-
ward they commenced hatching, and continued to do so for two

Practical Considerations. 145

days. Subsequently examined, twenty-eight out of fifty-four eggs
had perished.

Hauperiment 17.—Two egg-masses alternately immersed, drained,
and immersed again every two weeks, were placed in moist earth.
They commenced hatching two days afterward, and continued to
do so for twelve days. Upon subsequent examination, twenty-three
out of fifty-two had perished.

Hxperiment 18.—Twenty egg-masses immersed from Dec. 26th,
1876, to Jan. 16th, 1877; then drained till Feb. 6th; then immersed
till Feb. 27th; then drained again. On Feb. 3d, while dry, they
commenced hatching numerously,and a few continued for two days
to hatch while immersed. An examination March 7th, showed
about half of them still alive, the rest rotten. On March 27th they
were drained again, but none subsequently hatched—all having
rotted and dried up.

EHzperiment 18a.—Two masses in same conditions as in Expt. 18
till Feb. 27th, were placed in moist earth and all the eggs hatched
March 7—12.

Haperiment 19.—Twenty egg-masses immersed from Dec. 26th,
1876, to Jan. 23d, 1877; then drained till Feb. 20th; then submerged
again. They commenced hatching on the 6th of Feb., and con-
tinued two days after the second submergence. On the 7th of
March but about five per cent. had rotted. On March 20th they
were drained again, but none subsequently hatched, except five
eggs from two pods at once placed in earth. ,

Hxperiment 20.—Two egg-masses immersed for four weeks; then
drained for two weeks; then immersed for one week; then placed
in moist earth. They commenced hatching seven days afterward,
and continued to do so for six days. Subsequently examined, one
of the masses was rotten; the eggs in the other had all hatched.

Hauperiment 21.—Twenty egg-masses kept from Dec. 26th, 1876,
in earth saturated with moisture. On Feb. 28d, 1877, they com-
_ menced hatching, and continued to do so till March 7th, when all
were found to have hatched, éxcept one pod, which was rotten.

Haperiment 22.—Twenty egg-masses, alternately placed every
five days, from Dec. 26th, 1876, in earth saturated with moisture
and in earth which was very dry. Commenced hatching Feb. 14th,
and continued till March 7th, when, upon examination, all had
hatched, except nine of the pods, which were rotten.

EHaperiment 23.--Twenty egg-masses immersed and exposed

10

146 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

out-doors Dec. 26th, 1876. From that time till April 9th, the water
was frozen and completely thawed at nine different times, the ves-
sel containing them, which was of glass and admitted the sunlight,
several times breaking. The changes were as follows: Frozen till
Jan. 10th; then thawed till the 12th; then frozen till the 18th; then
thawed till the 20th; then frozen till the 26th; then thawed till Feb.
20th; then partly frozen till the 22d; then thawed till the 26th;
then frozen till the 27th; then thawed till March 5th; then frozen till
March 10th; then thawed till March 15th; then frozen till the 16th;
then thawed till the 24th; then frozen till the 25th. Examined on
the 7th of March only one pod was found rotten; the others appar-
ently sound. On the 9th of April, all with the exception of twelve
eggs were found rotten, the masses having become disintegrated
and the eggs for the most part lying singly at the bottom.

Hxperiment 24.—Two egg-masses under same conditions as
in Expt. 23, till Feb. 9th, when they were brought in-doors and
placed in earth. One was dried up on the 16th; the other com-
menced hatching on the 27th, and when examined on March 7th,
all the eggs in it were found to have hatched.

Experiment 25.—Two egg-masses under same conditions as in
Expt. 23, till Feb. 27th, when they were placed in earth in-doors.
Examined March 7th, they were found sound, and near the hatch-
ing point. On March 20th they commenced hatching.

Experiment 25a.— 'Two egg-masses, under same conditions as
in Expt. 23, up to March 6th, were then placed in earth in-doors.
They commenced hatching March 23d, and continued till April 3d.
Subsequently examined, but eight out of the fifty-four eggs were
shrunken and dead. '

Haperiment 25b.—Two egg-masses under same conditions as in
Expt. 23, up to March 27th, were then placed in earth, as above.
April 14th—20th, ten hatched. Subsequently examined, the rest
were found rotten.

Experiment 25c.—The twelve eggs remaining April 9th, from
Expt. 23, were placed in earth. Five out of the twelve hatched
April 20th--26th. The rest were subsequently found rotten.

These experiments establish a few facts that were some-
what unexpected. The insect is a denizen of the high and
arid regions of the Northwest, and has often been observed
to prefer dry and sunny places, and to avoid wet land, for

Practical Considerations. 147

‘purposes of ovipositing. The belief that moisture was
prejudicial to the eggs, has, for these reasons, very gener-
ally prevailed. The power which they exhibit of retaining
vitality, and of hatching under water or in saturated
ground, is, therefore, very remarkable—the more so when
viewed in connection with the results obtained in the suc-
ceeding experiments. That the eggs should hatch after
several weeks submergence, and that the young insect
should even throw off the post-natal pellicle, was, to me,
quite a surprise, and argues a most wonderful toughness
and tenacity. After they had been dried and soaked for
over six weeks, under conditions that approach those of
spring, I found a good proportion of the eggs to contain
the full-formed and living young, which, though somewhat
shrunken, and evidently too weak to have made an exit,
were still capable of motion. The water evidently retards
hatching. An examination of the submerged eggs that
remained unhatched long after others had hatched, which
had been under similar treatment up to a certain time, and
‘then transferred to earth, showed all the parts to be unusu-
ally soft and flaccid. Yet, when once life has gone, the
egg would seem to rot quicker in the water than in the
ground. ,

The results of Experiments 23—25¢ prove conclusively
that water in winter time, when subject to be frozen, is
‘still less injurious to the eggs. |

Altogether, these experiments give us very little encour-
agement as to the use of water as a destructive agent;
and we can readily understand how eggs may hatch out,
as they have been known to do, in marshy soil, or soil too
wet for the plow; or even from the bottom of ponds that
were overflowed during the winter and spring. While a
certain proportion of the eggs may be destroyed by alter-
nately soaking and drying the soil at short-repeated inter-

148 The Rocky Mountain Loeust.

vals, it is next) to impossible to do this in practice during
the winter season as effectually as it was done in the
experiments; and the only case in which water can be
profitably used is where the land can be flooded for a few
days just at the period when the bulk of the eggs are
hatching.

EXPERIMENTS TO TEST THE EHrrectrs oF EXPOSURE TO
THE FREE Arr.—The eggs in the following series were
obtained at Manhattan, Kansas, in November, and all
under similar conditions.

Haperiment 26.—A large number of egg-masses were thoroughly
broken up and the single eggs scattered over the surface of the
ground out-doors early in December. By the 28d of February all
had perished, and most of them had collapsed and shriveled.

Hxperiment 27.—A large number of pods were partly broken up
and exposed as in Expt. 26. On the 10th of March the outer eggs
were mostly dead and shrunken, but a few. of the protected ones
were yet plump, the embryon well advanced and apparently sound.
Placed in earth they subsequently hatched.

Experiment 28.—A large number of unbroken pods were exposed
under similar conditions as in the preceding Expts. By March
10th fully three-fourths of the eggs had perished, and by April Ist
all had perished.

Hxperiment 29.—Fifty egg-masses were kept in-doors in an open-
mouthed bottle in perfectly loose and dry earth from November
6th. Fully eight per cent. of the eggs had hatched by December
28th, when hatching ceased, and a subsequent examination showed
the rest to have shrunken and perished.

It is very evident from the above experiments that we
can do much more to destroy the eggs by bringing into
requisition the universally utilizable air, than we can by
the use of water. The breaking up of the mass and
exposure of the individual eggs to the desiccating effects
of the atmosphere, effectually destroys them; and when to

Practical Considerations. 149

this is added the well known fact that thus exposed they
are more liable to destruction by their numerous enemies,
we see at once the importance of this mode of coping with
the evil.

EXPERIMENTS TO TEST THE ErrEcts or BuRYING AT
DIFFERENT DEPTHS, AND OF PRESSING THE Soru.—The
following series of experiments was made with eggs
obtained at Manhattan, Kansas, early in November, and
‘similar in condition to those in the first series. Large tin
‘cylindrical boxes, made of different depths, and varying
from four to eight inches in diameter, were used; and in
order to hasten the result they were kept in-doors at the
temperature already mentioned. ‘The soil in all the boxes
was finely comminuted and kept in uniform and moderately
moist condition. It was gently pressed with the fingers,
‘so as to approach in compactness the surface soil of a well
cultivated garden. In each instance the eggs were placed
“In the center of the box. A large number of eggs were
buried at different depths out-doors where they were
under natural conditions of soil pressure and temperature.
The soil was a tolerably stiff yellow clay, and was pretty
well compacted by many heavy rains, after the frost was
thawed out. The results of the out-door experiments
comport with those made in the boxes. The eggs being
placed at every depth from one to eighteen inches, and
each batch covered with a wire screen, the result was accu-
rately determined. All at one inch below the surface
hatched ; about one-third of those at two inches managed
to escape, and none from any greater depth. Examined
May 12th, they had hatched down to a depth of twelve
inches, and worked their way upward, and horizontally,
seldom extending more than one inch in the former, or
more than two inches in the latter direction. Most of

150 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

those at greater depths were at that time unhatched. In
looser soil, they would doubtless have managed to push
somewhat farther.

Hzperiment 30.—Ten egg-masses were placed just one inch be-
low the surface in the center of a box four inchesin diameter. The
young began to appear January 30th, when it was noticed that.
every one came up at the side of the box, between the earth and
the tin, where there was more or less shrinking of the former from
the latter. Upon pressing the earth more firmly around the border,
the issuing of the young ceased. Upon examining the eggs, March
7th, it was found that they had all hatched. A few of the young
were still alive, and endeavoring to escape ; the rest had died in the:
effort. They had made no progress upward through the pressed
surface, but had pushed horizontally as the looser earth permitted.

Experiment 31.—From ten egg-masses, placed two inches be--
neath the surface, the young commenced issuing from the sides,
as in the preceding Expt., January 31st. None issued directly
through the surface of the soil, and none issued after the border
was pressed more firmly to the tin. Subsequent examination
showed the soil penetrated in devious directions, but none of the
insects had reached higher than within three-quarters of an inch of
the surface.

Hxperiment 32.—Ten egg-masses placed three inches below the
surface. The young began, January 31st, to issue from the sides,
as in Expts. 30, 31. Upon pressing the ground more firmly around
the borders, none afterwards issued, and subsequent examination
showed that the young had tunneled the earth in tortuous passages.
toward the sides, and perished there; without reaching nearer than
within an inch of the surface in the middle of the box.

Haperiment 33.-— Ten egg-masses placed six inches below the
surface. On February Ist, the young commenced to issue, as in the
preceding Expts., from the side, and continued to do so till the
4th, when the earth was pressed more closely to the tin. None
issued afterwards. Subsequent examination showed that some had
succeeded in working their way upward through the soil to within
two inches of the surface; but most had reached the sides, and
there collected and perished between the tin and the soil.

Other experiments made in glass tubes where the move-
ments of the insects could be watched, all produced results.

Practical Considerations. 151

similar to those above given ; and all point to the conclu-
sion that where the newly-hatched insect has not the
natural channel of exit (described on p. 72) which was pre-
pared by the mother, it must inevitably perish if the soil
be moderately compact, unless cracks, fissures, or other
channels reaching to the surface are at hand.

From the above four series of experiments, I would
draw the following deductions, which have important
practical bearing :

First—Frost has no injurious effect on the eggs ; its
influence is beneficial rather, in weakening the outer shell.

Second—Alternate freezing and thawing is far less inju-
rious to them than we have hitherto supposed, and tends
to their destruction, if at all, indirectly, by exposing them
to the free air.

Third—The breaking open of the egg-masses, and ex-
posure of the eggs to the atmosphere, is the most effectual
way of destroying them. Hence the importance of har-
rowing in the fall is obvious.

Fourth—Moisture has altogether less effect on the vital-
ity of the eggs than has heretofore been supposed, and
will be of little use as a destructive agent, except where
land can be overflowed for two or three days at the time
when the bulk of the young are hatching.

Fifth—Plowing under of the eggs will be effectual in
destroying them, just in proportion as the ground is after-
ward harrowed and rolled. Its effects will also necessarily
vary with the nature of thesoil. Other things being equal,
fall plowing will have the advantage over spring plowing,
not only in retarding the hatching period, but in permit-
ting the settling and compacting of the soil ; while where
the ground is afterwards harrowed and rolled, the spring
plowing will prove just as good, and on light soils perhaps
better.

152 The Rocky Mowntain Locust.

TEMPERATURE AT ST. LOUIS, MO., OF WINTER OF 1876-7.

1876. Max | Min Mean 1877. Max. | Min.| Mean.
: ;

November 2 Sgahonssn 5". mn i 30 | a Janwary? 11s hoceceiees BB | a | aa

SOs ry ANG eeroalcs So. Ae, Se 1 oOo 3 Be Le, en ?
“ Aiea enclose AG nt a0 | 44 sy 13). oe 27 | 10 | 22
; 18 Jesse Gees ATE | 25%] Sk cs 14. oes BA a 31
. 19 361 22 1 22 “ 13. eee 43 | 23 | 33
. Mere sg cee £5 §Sho dS 7 Ce 23 9 18
“ SY ls RE aR 471 32.4" BF . hice eee 40" ROT 35
iia Ct Phe 42) S28 85 “ 18... See 46 | 35; 42
‘ ORE es ates iss 45 | 31 | 36 w 19.2. 50 | 39 1 45
. Oe Pa ak tenis Slclwoe |. AL “ 20. hee AGH esl par 22
: OF, eet dy Mae 47 | 381 | 40 “ 01k ee 37 | 19 32
. DB ke. PREY, 38 | 30 | 34 . RN Ss Se Os 26
Driek, baeS ws 45 | 31 | 39 . 93:2. 7 32 | 10 | 24
93 Ronee Ate 39 | 23-]| 28 oS 24 kee ee 31 icra?
OD sent aan. dar 33 ik 2a a] 29 a D5 on sciace eee AS S23 tsa
» Shes ee oy diel ania ie eee (3 . 96230. ee at i eon ao
December i BE oe Deeeee a . iv oY at EE ses a al OE
S Cee ee OP eyes D3 “ 20 ce ee 57 | 38 49
" AEE ES EE 34 | 24 | 30 es 30, eee ..-| 65 | 48 57
*. nee Sea yeh: Asal eB e 31 ee Cees 66 | 53 1 - 59
” Gh eee 47 -|° 83°) 33. || February 1/25).2ee 69 | 50 | 59
‘ as bee ome Agi) B41 e239 xe Di. oe ee re | 44 49
: Qube sees hat 40 Doh a5 “ aes ee 48 | 35 | 37
eT eae On ane 1 | —5 5 o NE 46 | 32 39
“ Os aoe 37 yp Bil “ 5 wore (esa less:
SD psest sa eeatak Ae ss | 28 | 44 Gi wie ae 49 | 3h | 4
‘ 125 Se es 60 | 36 | 48 co 1 sd ee . | 53 | 38 46
Cem uen 50 | 38 | 42 “ 8 sae 47 | 36 | 42°
. TART RS heey nen Been AS 7 é 9. Sa oe eee 50 } 33 44
‘ 15. OR aA Ola ant eSG “ 10, ee 58 | 37 48
“ 1G cen eteeicc 44 AS SO) ‘ if .2 eee 58 | 42 52
as AG cos See 97, 4) 61313500 ‘ 12. jaye 52 | 29 32
“ 18, TS ee DD) 27146 “ 13... a ee 33
‘ 1D Soee eee esl ek wea a la 28 ‘ 14, 5.5 ee 44 | 30 38
: 20 FE es bon IEE 43 | 23 |] 33 : Bike eee 53 | 381 44
: Oaks eee ee 43 23 24 ae 16-656. Ree 47 33 40
“ 2s vy age sha 37 | 20 | 26 . 17. sc dei ee 50 | 34 42
“ DEANE Sen Sn OM al 131 19 ‘ 18.2: ee 66 | 34 53
« DA ether acae Gy a 4) 13 19... Bee 58 | 34 37
o 5c Sar Sa Sy Tees edie ats : 0.06 eee 48 | 27 39
ve OG isc eee Oe tS ets ‘ 91 becca geen 65 | 84 51
. 97: Sk ieee 4 | 15 | 21 * 22) ad eee 53 | 44 47
as OB to. Ti ayes A Sey le Dl “ 93.) 2 44 | 33 38
+ QO stow foes SBP) HO 14 ‘ Ae Ons 0 35 29 32
“ BOS ina ee 1 Mest (s) ° 25. Os ee 33. | 28 31
“ Sina» peer eae oe Si ila ele wel “e 26, 120 sae 43 | 28 37
“s 27 i ee LA a es 40
1877. | s OR. Bacon 50 | 32 43
| Marcel!’ (2 seen 47 | 39 43
SAMUATY ML sate aiesicte oo oa Bt Ae ara Z BRR es eo a a cH
Ott ON Ree ne Se a | ; Soo hi 2 eee 28
; Bagocsansegabecds 26) 4 aioe Sai Be AP eee eae 82 | 14 26
“ Bie es Rie Co os 42: 19 | 33 te 5 cys heed 40 | 26 34
o Fi) a 42 | 99 | 2% “ Ci eee 55 | 30 46
as Brtee Mages. 43 | Spe res . ees MEN 57 | 26 47
2 “wr neh 5 a Balt 35 dian rel ss Se eee ee 1 55 | 18 23
vs Beemer 13 | 4 7 ‘s Walia ears. 93 9 18
: Se ME tos 28 | 1") 2499 “ {ONS eee 41 |. 16 31

LS URNES (te esa bes 35 | Pole eat

Practical Considerations. 153

HARROWING IN FALL.

So satisfied have I been for some time that systematic
harrowing of the eggs, or their exposure by other means,
in the fall, is the best work that can be done, that I have
earnestly urged its enforcement by law whenever the soil
in any township is known to be well charged with eggs.
A revolving harrow or cultivator will do excellent work,
not only in the field, but in the road-ways and other un-
cultivated places, where the eggs may be laid. The more
the soil is pulverized, after being broken up, the better.

COLLECTING THE EGGS.

The eggs are sometimes placed where neither harrowing
nor plowing can be employed. In such cases, they should
be collected and destroyed by the inhabitants, and the
State should offer some inducement in the way of bounty
for such collection and destruction. Every bushel of eggs
destroyed is equivalent to a hundred acres of corn saved,
and when we consider the amount of destruction caused
by the young, and that the ground is often known to be
filled with eggs; that, in other words, the earth is sown
with the seeds of future destruction, it is surprising that
such bounty laws have not been more generally enacted.
A few thousand dollars taken out of the State treasury
for this purpose would be well spent, and be distributed
among the very people most in need of assistance.

PLOWING.

Plowing the eggs under deeply, destroys them either en-
tirely or in great part, and if some survive, the young hatch
so late the next season, that their power for harm is much
lessened. Care should be taken not to bring the eggs
turned under in autumn to the surface again, by plowing

154 The Rocky Mountain Locust.
the same land the following spring; for, thus brought to
the surface, the eggs more often hatch.

The experience as to deep plowing under of the eggs is.
somewhat conflicting, and in some light, dry soils, a good.
number of them will hatch late if turned under a foot ; yet,
from my own observations, and a vast amount of experi-
ence gathered together, I recommend it as profitable. If
delayed till spring, it should be done just as the young
begin to hatch, as it is then most effectual. The plowing .
will be effectual according as the soil is porous or tenacious,,
and according us the surface ts afterward compressed by

harrowing and rolling. From the experiments already —

recorded, it is obvious that, all other things being equal,
a plowing of four to six inches will prove more effectual
in spring, if the ground be subsequently harrowed and
rolled, than deeper plowing with no subsequent comminu-
tion and compression.

IRRIGATION — TRAMPING.

Where the ground is light and porous, excessive and
continued moisture will cause most of the eggs to perish ;,
and irrigation, or alternate submersion and drying of such
land, will likewise prove beneficial. It is less useful, how-
ever, than is generally supposed, and on tenacious soils
will have little effect.

Wherever hogs or cattle can be turned into the fields
where the eggs abound, most of these will be destroyed
by the rooting and tramping. All these means are obvi-
ously insufficient, however, for the reason that the eggs
are too often placed where none of them can be employed.

In such cases, they should be collected and destroyed by
the inhabitants, and the bounty laws, presently to be con-
sidered, are useful in this connection.

Practical Considerations. 155.

DESTRUCTION OF THE YOUNG OR UNFLEDGED LOCUSTS.

Next to the destruction of the eggs, the destruction of
the young or unfledged locusts is most within man’s
power. The means of accomplishing this result necessarily
vary somewhat with the nature of the soil and of the
crops. For convenience, they may be classified into:
1, burning; 2, crushing; 3, trapping; 4, catching; 5, the
use of destructive agents.

1. Burning.—In a prairie and wheat-growing country,
like much of that which this locust devastates, and where
there is always an abundance of old straw, burning is per-
haps the best means of warfare against the young. These,
for some time after they hatch, may be driven into wind-
rows or heaps of straw scattered around and through a
field, and burned. During cold, damp weather, they will,.
of their own accord, congregate under such shelter, and
may sometimes be exterminated by burning, where no
driving is necessary. As to burning the prairie in the
spring, while there is much to be said pro and con, it is,
all things considered, beneficial in this connection.
Scarcely any eggs are laid in rank prairie, and the impres-
sion that locusts are slaughtered by myriads in burning
extensive areas, is a false one. This practice is beneficial.
principally around cultivated fields and roadsides, from.
which the locusts may be driven, or from which they will
of themselves pass for the shelter the prairie affords.

The burning of extensive prairies, after the bulk of the
locusts hatch, destroys the nests and eggs of some game
birds which feed upon the locusts, but the birds themselves
always escape and nest again ; whereas many noxious in-
sects, like the chinch bug, are killed ; so that, even leaving
the locust question out of considera emy the burning would.
yet prove advantageous to man.

156 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

It is beneficial in proportion as it is delayed, because the
locusts, as they develop, disperse more and more from }|{
their hatching grounds into the prairie.

In Colorado, machines for burning have been used to
good advantage. Mr. J. Hetzel, of Longmont, uses a |
burner drawn by horses. It is twelve feet long, two to
two and one-half feet wide, made of iron, and set on run-
ners four inches high. An open grate on thetop of the run- |
ners is filled with pitch-pine wood, and a metal sheet covers
the grate to keep the heat down. The grate is generally |
made with a network of heavy wire, such as telegraph-
wire. Two men and a team will burn ten to twelve acres -
a day, and kill two-thirds of the insects, but it requires a
hot fire. Mr. C. C. Horner gives, in the Colorado Farmer, —
the following more detailed description of a machine |
which works on the same principle : |

It consists of three runners made of 2x4 scantling three feet in
length, to be placed six feet apart, making the machine twelve feet
wide; runners to be bound together by three flat straps or bars of
iron (the base being twelve feet long.) Across the top, bars of iron —
hold the runners firmly together, and form a frame across which
wire can be worked, to make a grate to hold fire. The upper part
of the runners should be hollowed out so that the grate may slide
along within twoinches of the ground. A sheet-iron arch should
be set over this grate to drive the heat downward. This machine
is very light, and can be worked with one horse. Pitch-wood is
best adapted to burning, and can be chopped the right length and
size and left in piles where most convenient when needed. This
machine is intended to be used when the little hoppers just make
their appearance along the edge of the grain, going over the
ground once or twice each day, or as often as necessary to keep
them killed off. The scorching does not kill the grain, but makes
it a few days later. This is certainly the cheapest as well as the
most effectual manner of getting rid of this pest.

A hand burner, consisting of any form of pan or grate,
to hold combustible material, and attached to a handle,
will do excellent service in gardens and small enclosures.

Long wire or iron rods, wrapped in rags saturated with

d
)

Practical Considerations. 157

it kerosene, and then ignited and carried over a field, near
(the ground, will slaughter large numbers.

2. Crushing.—This can be resorted to with advantage
' only in exceptional cases, where the ground is smooth and
(hard. Heavy rolling, where the surface of the soil is
' sufficiently firm and even, destroys a large number of

‘| the newly-hatched young, but is most advantageously
| employed when they are most sluggish and inclined to

| huddle together, as during the first eight or ten days after
_ hatching, and in the mornings and evenings subsequently.
In many parts of Europe and Asia, flat, wooden, spade-
| like implements are extensively used for this purpose.

| 8. Trapping.—This is very effectual, especially when
the insects are making their way into a field from roads

and hedge-sides. The use of nets or seines, or converging
strips of calico or any other material, made after the plan
of a quail-net, has proved most satisfactory. By digging
a pit, or boring a post-auger hole three or four feet deep,
and then staking the two wings so that they converge to-
ward it, large numbers of the locusts may be driven into
the pit after the dew is off the ground, or may be headed
off when marching in a given direction. By changing the
position of this trap, much good can be done when the
insects are yet small and concentrated in particular spots.
Ditching or trenching will come under this head ; and
after the insects have commenced to travel in schools,
proper ditching is the most effectual protection to crops.
This is especially true where, as was the case in much of
the ravaged country in 1875, there is little or no hay or
straw to burn ; or when the crops have grown to such a size
as prevents the use of some of the destructive agents men-
tioned further on. A ditch two feet wide and two feet
deep, with perpendicular sides, offers an effectual barrier
to the young insects. It must, however, be kept in proper

158 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

order, so that the side next the field to be protected is |

not allowed to wash out or become too hard. It may be |

kept friable by brush or rake. They tumble into such a
ditch and accumulate, and die at the bottom in large quan-
tities. In a few days the stench becomes great, and neces- }
sitates the covering up of the mass. In order to keep the
main ditch open, therefore, it is best to dig pits or deeper
side ditches at short intervals, in which the hoppers will
accumulate and may be buried. If atrench is made around
afield about hatching time, but few hoppers will get into
that field till they acquire wings, and by that time the
principal danger is over, and the insects are fast disap-
pearing. If any should hatch within the inclosure, they
are easily driven into the ditches dug in different parts of
the field. The direction of the apprehended approach of
the insects being known from their hatching locality,
ditching one or two sides next to such locality is generally
sufficient, and when farmers join they can construct a long
ditch which will protect many farms.

I have not a doubt but that with proper and systematic
ditching early in the season, when the insects first hatch,
nearly everything can be saved.

Just behind the fair-grounds at Kansas City, Mo., there
is an intelligent and industrious gardener, Mr. F. D. Ad-
kins, who, in 1875, had about three acres in vegetables.
‘The locusts hatched in large numbers all around Kansas
City, and nowhere more abundantly than in the imme-
diate vicinity of this truck-garden. Mr. Adkins, remem-
bering his experience with the same plague in 1867, perse-
vered in ditching for their destruction in 1875; and though
the surface of the country for miles and miles around was
desolate, yet this little three-acre field was untouched—a
perfect oasis in the desert, at once giving pleasure to the
eye, and speaking eloquently of what may be accomplished

Practical Considerations. 159

|, by a little tact and perseverance. Numerous other instances
_of this kind might be given. I have seen people driving off
| the young locusts day after day, in their endeavors to save
| some small vegetable or flower garden —their efforts
eventually in vain — where one-tenth the time spent in
ditching would ‘have effectually accomplished the object.
And when I should, perhaps, have been praying, I have
witnessed sights that prompted to thought and word the
| very reverse of prayer. In a large portion of Johnson
county, Mo., the injury in 1875 was slight, and until the
end of May little damage was done around Warrensburg.
Happening to be in the vicinity of this town on the 3d of
June, I came upon a beautiful vineyard which had up to
that time escaped. The insects had got into it, and the
owner was advised to ditch to save it. His piety exceeded
his good sense, however, and instead of genuflecting on a
spade he was performing the operation in another way,
while his beautiful vineyard was being destroyed at so
speedy a rate that it would not show a green leaf by the
morrow. I respect every man’s faith, but there are in-
stances where I would respect his work a good deal more.

Where the soil is tenacious, and water can be let into
the ditches so as to cover the bottom, they may be made
shallower, and still be effective. Mr. Frank Holsinger, of
Kansas City, under date of May 23rd, 1875, sent me the
following account of his experience:

Your very interesting communication to the St. Louis Globe was
reproduced in our Journal of Commerce on the 21st inst. I have no
doubt but that your counsel will be heeded by many, but to the
mass of our people it isas “‘sounding brass,” etc. During the past
four days I have been at work, and although I spent less than one-
fourth of my time tothe purpose,| have destroyed between thirty and
forty bushels of wingless locusts. My remedy is so simple I con-
cluded to give it to you, as I think it better than any I have yet
seen, and had I known how easy it was to accomplish I would

now see growing crops where ruin and desolation appear.
As they had entered my wheat (I took your advice and fall-

160 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

plowed everything, and I do not think there was a hatful hatched
on my forty acres) from neighboring farms,and knowing that when
they got through they must move 1n force on my garden, I cautioned
my wife to inform me when they commenced on this last. On the
18th inst., at 11 A. M., she gave the watch-word, “they come;” so,
leaving corn-plowing, I hastened to surround our garden with a
board fence, intending to drive the insects around, but to no pur-
pose, although the boards were placed at 45° outward, and some six
of us were at work. Stillthey came. We built straw fires next—
stillunsatisfactory. I had been underdraining, and had some drains
stillopen. Wife said, ‘you will work yourself sick, and all to no
purpose.” I took alook, and a patch of early potatoes, one-third —
of an acre, which we had saved, was melting before them. I then
saw them march straight for the drain. My impulse then was to
burn them in the drain. ThisI found difficult. The next thought
was ‘‘pit-falls at intervals in the drain.” I commenced digging
these, and the locusts tumbled in by thousands, but many escaped.
Now the thought occurred that if there was water in the pits they
could not jump; so water was thrown in, and the result was a suc-
cess. I feel certain that by a judicious expenditure of $50, in ditch-
ing around my thirty-five acres, I could have saved everything,
while my loss is largely in excess of $1,000.

The width and depth of the ditch is important, and as ex-
perience differed somewhat I have been at pains to get the
experience of a large number of correspondents addressed
by circular. Many have successfully used ditches two feet
deep and eighteen inches wide; afew have made them only
18 in. x18 in.; those who have used water found 12 in. x 15 in.
sufficient, while the larger number used a ditch such as [have
recommended, viz., two feet deep by two feet wide, with per-
pendicular sides. Having been the first to recommend
proper ditching in this country, I have felt particular inter-
est in its results, and have been in no small degree amused at
the fault found with my recommendation, by those who,
through slovenly-made ditches or other causes, have not
been successful in this mode of warfare. It is less effectual
against the newly-hatched young, which more easily crawl.
up a perpendicular bank than the larger ones, and its effi-
cacy will vary with the nature of the soil and other cir-
cumstances ; for, in proportion as the soil is loose, and
ditches hence apt to fill up by the action of strong winds,

Practical Considerations. 161

or in proportion as strong winds carry the insects over,
ditching will necessarily fail.

Those who, from theory rather than from experience, are
skeptical about the efficacy of ditching, urge that the lo-
cust, especially in the pupa state, can hop more than two
feet. In truth, however, whether when traveling in a
given direction of their own accord, or when being driven
or disturbed, they very seldom leap that distance, as all who
have had experience well know. That, on a pinch, the
pupa can leap even farther, is true; but the fact remains
that in practice, Caloptenus spretus seldom does. So the
chinch bug, though capable of flight, will yet tumble into
a ditch by myriads rather than use its wings. Even the
larger winged Acridia and Cidipodz tumble into such a
ditch, and seldom get out again. I would remark in this
connection, also, that a ditch three feet wide, unless cor-
respondingly deep, will be more apt to permit the insects
to escape, when once in, than a narrower one. In hopping,
the more perpendicular the direction the insects must take,
the shorter will be the distance reached.

The efficacy of the ditch depends not so much on the
inability of the young locusts to jump or scale it, as on
their tendency not to do so. In the bottom of the ditch
they soon become demoralized, crippled and enfeebled, by
constant effort, and the trampling and crowding upon one
another.

4. Catching.—There are innumerable mechanical con- |
trivances for this purpose. The cheapest and “most
satisfactory are those intended to bag the insects. A
frame two feet high and of varying length, according as it
is to be drawn by men or horses, with a bag of sheeting
tapering behind and ending in a small bag or tube, say one
foot in diameter and two or three feet long, with a fine

wire door at the end to admit the light and permit the
Wal

162 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

dumping of the insects, will do admirable work. The |}
insects gravitate toward the wire screen, and when the |
secondary bag is full they may be emptied into a pit dug >
for the purpose. These bagging-machines will prove most
serviceable when grain is too high for the kerosene pans, |
presently to be described, and they will be rendered more
effectual by having runners at distances of about every
two feet extending a foot or so in front of the mouth, so
as to more thoroughly disturb the insects and prevent them
from getting underneath; also by being drawn by wings of
vertical teeth so as to increase the scope with as little
resistance to the wind as possible.

Hand nets, such as are used by entomologists, and which
[Fig. 34.] are easily made as
| shown in accompany-

ing figure, will do good
service in gardens.

A curious suction-
fanning machine has
been invented by Mr.

i J. C. King, of Boulder,
jane Ne ae complete: b, hollow handle: c, Col., and may be men-
tioned in this connection. A strong draft sucks the insects
up through an elongate mouth with lips that run near the
ground, and draws them up through two funnels and knocks
them to pieces. I have seen the working of such a machine
_ in Mr. T. C. Henry’s possession at Abilene, Kan. It is an
admirable invention, and may be improved so as to be of
great service ; but on account of its expense will scarcely
compete with the more simple methods.

5. Use of destructive agents—Kerosene is the most
effective. It may be used in any of its cruder forms. In
Colorado they use it to good advantage on the water in
their irrigating-ditches, and it may be used anywhere in

Practical Considerations. 163

ae ee ee se — a on men OY

pans or in saturated cloths, stretched on -frames, drawn
/ over a field. A good and cheap pan is made of ordinary
| sheet-iron, eight feet long, eleven inches wide at the
bottom, and turned up a foot high at the back and an inch
high at the front. A runner at each end, extending some
distance behind, and a cord attached to each front corner,
complete the pan, at a cost of about $1.50.

[Fig. 35.]

SMALL COAL-OIL PAN.

I have known from seven to ten bushels of young locusts
caught with one such pan in an afternoon. It is easily
pulled by two boys, and by running several together in a
row, one boy to each outer rope and one to each contiguous
pair, the best work is performed with the least labor. Heav-
ier or longer pans, to be drawn by horses, should have
transverse partitions to avoid spilling the liquid ; also more
runners. ‘The oil may be used alone so as to just cover the
bottom, or on the surface of water, and the insects strained
through a wire ladle. When the insects are very small,
one may economize in kerosene by lining the pan with
saturated cloth ; but this becomes less efficient afterwards,
and frames of cloth saturated with oil do not equal the pans.

164 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

Where oil has been scarce, some persons have substituted }
concentrated lye, but when used strong enough to kill, it
costs about as much as the oil. The oil-pans can be used
only when the crops to be protected are small.

Small pans for oil, attached to an obliquing pole or
handle, do excellent service in gardens.

[Fig. 36.]

LARGE COAL-OIL PAN.

Coal tar may also be used to good advantage in similar
pans, either drawn or pushed by man or horse.

Mr. Rufus Clark, of Denver, uses apiece of oil cloth, nine
to twelve feet long, and six feet wide; one side and each
end are secured to light wooden strips by common carpet
tacks, and the corners strengthened by braces.

“The oil cloth is smeared with coal tar, purchased at the
Denver Gas Works for $7.50 per barrel, and the trap is
dragged over the ground by two men—a cord about ten
feet long being fastened to the front corners for that purpose.
The entire expense of the “trap” is about $3.50, and as it
is light and easily handled, will be found serviceable on |
small as well as large farms.” .

Zinc instead of oil cloth has also been used for the same
purpose.

The experience of 1875 showed that when the insects },

Practical Considerations. 165

are famishing, it is useless to try and protect plants by
any application whatever. Sweetened water, which was
supposed to be effective, certainly has no such effect on the
unfledged hoppers, for they,“ went for” plants which I
thus sprinkled even more voraciously than for those not
sprinkled. Lime does not deter them ; cresylic soap will
not keep them from eating ; and Paris green, though it

- undoubtedly kills those which partake, is yet no protection

to plants, because those which go off to die somewhere
after partaking are continuously followed by others which
go through the same experience. I gave carbonic acid gas,
from a Babcock fire extinguisher, a thorough trial under
many different circumstances and conditions, but without
any satisfactory results. It had very little effect upon
them even when played upon them continuously and at:
short distance. They often became numbed by the force
of the liquid but invariably rallied again.

A mixture of kerosene and warm water, applied through
an atomizer or spraying machine, is, perhaps, the best pro-
tection, and will measurably keep the insects off when they
are not too numerous.

Paris green, mixed with flour, in proportion of one part
of green to twenty-five or thirty parts of the dilutent, if
scattered on the ground, will attract quite a number of the
insects, which will eat thereof and die. This mixture has
long been known to kill the Colorado Potato-beetle. Its
use against the young locusts is, however, practically of
little avail, first on account of their numbers, secondly on
account of the danger incident to the use of so poisonous a

remedy.

PROTECTION OF FRUIT TREES.

The best means of protecting fruit and shade trees de-
serves separate consideration. Where the trunk is smooth

166 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

and perpendicular, they may be protected by whitewash-
ing. The lime crumbles under the feet of the insects as
they attempt to climb, and prevents their getting up. By
their persistent efforts, however, they gradually tear off
the lime and reach a higher point each day, so that the
whitewashing must be often repeated. Trees with short,
rough trunks, or which lean, are not very well protected
in this way. A strip of smooth, bright tin answers even
better for the same purpose. LEncircling the tree in any
of the different ways employed for preventing the ascen-
sion of the female Canker Worn, puts an effectual estop-
pel on the operations of the young locusts above the point
of attachment, for they can not jump from and alight again
on the same perpendicular surface. A strip of tin three or
-four inches wide, brought around and tacked to a smooth
tree, will protect it ; while on rougher trees a piece of old
rope may first be tacked around the tree, and the tin
tacked to it ‘so as to leave a portion both above and below.
Passages between the tin and the rope, or the rope aud
tree, can then be blocked by filling the upper area be-
tween tin and tree with earth. The tin must be high
enough from the ground to prevent the hoppers from
jumping from the latter beyond it ; and the trunk below
the tin, where the insects collect, should be covered with
coal tar or some poisonous substance, to prevent girdling.
This is more especially necessary with small trees.

One of the cheapest and simplest modes is to encircle
the tree with cotton batting, in which the insects will en-
tangle their feet, and thus be more or less obstructed.
Strips of paper covered with tar, stiff paper tied on so as to
slope roof-fashion, strips of glazed wall-paper, and thick
coatings of soft soap, have been used with varying success,
but no estoppel equals the bright tin. The others require
constant watching and renewal, and in all cases coming

Practical Considerations. LCi

under my observation, some insects would get into the
trees, so as to require the daily shaking of these, morning
and evening. This will sometimes have to be done, when
the bulk of the insects have become fledged, even where
tin is used, for a certain proportion of the insects will then
fly into the trees. They do most damage during the night,
and care should be had that the trees be unloaded of their
voracious freight just before dark.

Most cultivated plants may be measurably protected
from the ravages of these young by good cultivation and a
constant stirring of the soil. The young have an antipa-
thy to a loose and friable surface, which incommodes them
and hinders their progress, and they will often leave such
a surface for one more hard and firm.

Finally, though insisting on ditching and the digging of.
pits as, all things considered, the best and most reliable
insurance against the ravages of the young locusts, I would
urge our farmers not to rely on these means alone, but to
employ all the other means recommended, according as
convenience and opportunity suggest.

One of my correspondents, Capt. John R. Wherry, of
Boonville, Mo., has suggested the use of strips of canvas,
dipped in liquid sulphur and attached to stakes to be stuck
in the ground. He thinks that if the strips are lit at even-
ing the fumes will drive the insects away from the locality
they pervade. The suggestion strikes me quite favorably
as a means of protecting orchards, and I would recommend
its trial. The strips should be dipped in hot sulphur,
allowed to cool, and then staked to the windward of the
orchard, if the wind is stirring.

DESTRUCTION OF THE WINGED INSECTS.

The complete destruction of the winged insects, when
they swoop down upon a country in prodigous swarms, is

168 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

impossible. Man is powerless before the mighty host.
Special plants, or small tracts of vegetation may be saved
by perseveringly driving the insects off, or keeping them
off by means of smudges, as the locusts avoid smoke; or
by rattling or tinkling noises constantly kept up. Long
ropes perseveringly dragged over a grain field, have been
used to good advantage. Great numbers may be caught
and destroyed by bagging and crushing, as recommended
for the new-fledged ; and I would more particularly urge
their destruction in this way late in the season, when,
early and late in the day, they are comparatively sluggish:
but as a rule, the vast swarms from the West or Northwest
will have everything their own way. In the latitude of
St. Louis, these invading swarms usually come too late to
affect the small grains, or to materially affect corn ; but
farther north they are more to be dreaded, and the ex-
perience of Minnesota and Dakota farmers teaches that
one of the best ways of avoiding their injuries is to grow
such crops as will mature early.

Mr. 8. T. Kelsey succeeded in saving many of his young
forest trees in Kansas, in 1874, by perseveringly smudging
and smoking them.

He gives his experience in the following words, in the
Kansas Farmer, Aug. 26, 1874:

At first we tried building fires on the ground, but it was not suc-
cessful. The smoke would not go where we wanted it to. We then
tried taking a bunch of hay and, holding it between sticks, would
fire it, and then, passing hie the field on the windward side,
would hold it so that the smoke would strike the grasshoppers. We
would soon have a cloud of hoppers on the wing, and by following
it up would, in a short time, clear the field. We have thus far
saved everything that was not destroyed when we commenced fight-
ing them ; and while I do not give this as an infallible remedy, not
having tried it sufficiently, yet it does seem to me, from what I
have seen of it, that one good active man who would attend right
toit, could protect a twenty-acre field ora large orchard. But to be
successful, one must attend right to the business.

Practical Considerations. 169

PREVENTIVE MEASURES.

The measures so far recommended have in view the de-
struction of the insects when once they are upon us. The
question very naturally arises, ‘““Can not something be
done to prevent the incursions of the species into the
more fertile States in which it is not indigenous ?”’

The most important results are likely to flow from a
thorough study of the Rocky Mountain Locust in its
native haunts and breeding places, such as the U.S. En-
tomological Commission is now engaged in. By learning
just when and how to strike the insect, so as to prevent,
if possible, its undue multiplication there—whether by
some more extensive system of irrigation, based on im-
proved knowledge of the topography and water supply
of the country, or by other means of destroying the eggs
—we may hope to protect the fertile States to the East
from future calamity.

One of the best means of checking the increase of the
species in its native haunts, will be found in the encourage-
ment and increase of its natural enemies, especially the
game birds. The introduction of the English sparrow has
been recommended. From what I know of the bird, both
here and in its native country, I should expect little aid
from it in this line, and if it can thrive to the Northwest,
it will soon spread there, as it is rapidly multiplying at
several points along the Mississippi. We may expect

more good from the encouragement of native locust-feed-
ing species. Prof. Thomas kas suggested that induce-
ments be offered to the Indians to collect and destroy the
eggs and young along the west side of the plains. Some
system of preventing the extensive prairie fires in fall that
are common in the country where the insect naturally
breeds, and then subsequently firing the country in the

170 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

spring, after the young hatch, and before the new grass
gets too rank, might also be adopted. But whatever the
means employed, they must be carried on systematically,
and on a sufficiently extended and comprehensive scale.

SUGGESTIONS THAT MAY BE OF SERVICE.

In addition to the foregoing remedial and preventive
measures to be taken in dealing with locusts, a few other
suggestions occur, which may be of advantage. The
plants that can be grown, which are unmolested by the
pests, and which will not, in all likelihood, suffer, have
already been enumerated. Those which are cultivated
are principally peas and other leguminous species, castor
beans, sorghum, broom-corn, tomatoes, sweet potatoes,
etc. The locusts, as already stated, are particularly fond —
of tansy, cocklebur, and Amarantus: these weeds, where
abundant, might be periodically sprinkled with Paris
Green water or powder, so as to kill large numbers of the
young insects. These last will also congregate on timothy
in preference to other grasses or grain, and a strip of
timothy around a corn or wheat-field, to be poisoned in
the same way, might save the latter. It is also currently
supposed that the common larkspur (Delphinium) is
poisonous to these insects, but how much truth there is in
the statement I am unable to tell. In going through an
oat-field, the winged insects drop a great deal of the grain,
which, when ripe enough, might at once be harrowed in
so as to furnish a good growth of fodder that can be cut
and cured for winter use. ‘The lesson of 1873 and 1874
should also not go unheeded. The former year was one
of plenty, and corn was so cheap and abundant that it
was burned for fuel in many sections where, in 1874, there
were empty cribs, and the farmers wished they had been
more provident.

Practical Considerations. vk

en i a re a cm a we a a a ne I

Nothing, however, will so surely insure those States
subject to them, against the ravages of this insect, as irri-
gation. With water at command, the farmer in all this
locust area is measurably master of his two greatest insect
plagues, the Chinch bug and the Locust, and full master of
the young locusts, either by inundating the land and
drowning them out after hatching, or by using kerosene
in the ditches ; andif there were no other reasons to be
urged in its favor, these are sufficient to warrant those
States included in said area in using all means in their
power in having schemes for irrigation perfected and
carried out, so far as the topography, soil, and other pecu-
liarities of the country will admit.

Hogs and poultry of every description delight to feed
on the young hoppers, and will flourish where these
abound, when nothing else does. It will be well, in the
event of a future invasion, for the people in the invaded
districts to provide themselves with as large a quantity as
possible of this stock. Where no general and systematic
efforts have been made to destroy either the eggs or the
young locusts, and it is found that, as spring opens, these
young hatch out in threatening numbers, the intelligent
farmer will delay the planting of everything that can not
be protected by ditching, until the very last moment, or
till toward the end of June—using his team and time
solely in the preparation of his land. In this way not
only will he save his seed and the labor of planting, and,
perhaps, replanting, but he will materially assist in weak-
ening the devouring armies. Men planted in 1875, and
worked with a will and energy born of necessity, only to
see their crops finally taken, their seed gone, and their

' teams and themselves worn out. The locusts ultimately

destroyed every green thing, until, finding nothing more,
they began to fall upon each other and to perish. This

172 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

i oo 5 nn oe ee

critical period in their history would have been brought
about much earlier if they had not had the cultivated
crops to feed upon ; and if, by concert of action, this sys-
tem of non-planting could at first have been adopted over
large areas, the insects would have been much sooner
starved out and obliged to congregate in the pastures,
prairies and timber. Moreover, the time required for early
planting and cultivation, if devoted to destroying the in-
sects after the bulk of them hatch out, toward the end
of April, would virtually annihilate them. The multipli-
cation of any species of animal beyond the power of the
country to support it, inevitably proves the destruction of
that species, unless it is ableto migrate. Let fifty batches
of canker-worm eggs hatch out on a single, somewhat
isolated apple tree, and not one worm will survive long
enough to mature. The leaves of the tree will be de-
voured. before the worms are half grown, and the latter
must then inevitably perish ; whereas, if. only a dozen
batches of eggs had hatched on that tree, the worms
might all have lived and matured. In the same way, the
young locusts inevitably perish whenever they are so nu-
merous as to devour every green thing before they become
fledged ; and in certain circumstances, the sooner such a
condition of things is brought about, the better. The
greatest generals and the mightiest armies must yield to
starvation.

Grain might also be sown in “lands” or strips, fifty to
one hundred feet wide, to permit of ditching between
them, and those who have fall wheat up and doing well,
where the eggs are thickly laid, should make ditches at
intervals through the field, to facilitate the saving of the
grain in the spring.

In this connection it is also very obvious that our Sig-
nal Service might be made the means of giving important

9)

Practical Considerations. 173

assistance to the farmers of the West, by warning them
of coming danger. If, as I believe, the disastrous swarms
which reach the southeastern country come from the ex-
treme Northwest, there is no reason why, by increasing
the number of signal stations in that region, the move-
ments of large swarms should not be daily recorded, and
the farmers to the East and Southeast be apprised of their
probable coming for weeks in advance. The people might
not, it is true, greatly benefit by the information, except
in preparing and providing for the possible contingency ;
but by thus recording the movements of swarms, we shall
in a few years come to know more about the native breed-
ing places and habits of the species, and as the Bureau
perfects its work, we may, through it, learn the fall before,
when the insects have become unduly multiplied, or have
laid enormous quantities of eggs, over large areas in their
native habitat, and when, in consequence, an invasion the
following year is probable ; in which event a larger pro-
portion of small grains and other crops that escape the
ravages of the fall swarms, can be planted in the threat-
ened country.

As to the best means of disposing of the slaughtered lo-
custs, the easiest and most generally employed are burning
and burying. Yet the insects might be turned to good
advantage as manure, or sun-dried and preserved in cakes
to feed to hogs, poultry, etc., and where large quantities
are destroyed under a bounty system, some such means
of making the most of them should be considered.

As a means of assisting farmers in the destruction of the
unfledged locusts by trenches and in other ways, I would
also urge the employment of the military, a large force of
whom, in times of peace, could be ordered to the field at
short notice. As I have elsewhere remarked :* “To many, the

* Proc. Am. Ass. Ady. Sc., 1875. B. 219.

174 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

idea of employing soldiers to assist the agriculturist in bat-
tling with this pest, may seem farcical enough, but though |
the men might not find glory in the fight, the war—unlike ]
most other wars—would be fraught only with good conse- —
quences tomankind. In Algeria the custom prevails of send- |
ing the soldiers against these insects. While in the south
of France last summer [1875], I found to my great satisfac-
tion, that at Arles, Bouche du Rhone, where the unfledged
locusts (Caloptenus Italicus, a species closely allied to our
Rocky Mountain Locust), were doing great harm, the
soldiers had been sent in force to do battle with them, and
were then and there waging a vigorous war against the tiny
foe.” A few regiments, armed with no more deadly
weapons than the common spade, sent out to sections of
country that are suffering from locust ravages, might in a
few weeks measurably rout the pygmean army, and
materially assist the farmer in his ditching operations.

DIVERSIFIED AGRICULTURE.

Finally, much can be done to avert the evil we are con-
sidering by a judicious choice of crops. There is nothing
surer than that the destitution in Western Missouri and
Eastern Kansas, in 1874-5, was fully as much owing
to the previous ravages of the Chinch bug as to those
of this locust. The Chinch bug is an annual and increas-
ing trouble ; the locust only a periodical one. Now, the
regions indicated, agriculturally, are the richest in those
two States, and, for that matter, can scarcely be surpassed
in the entire country. Consisting of high, rolling prairie,
interspersed, as arule, with an abundance of good timber,
this area produces a very large amount of corn and stock.
Of cultivated crops, corn is the staple, and, with a most
generous soil, it has become the fashion to plant and culti-
vate little else, year after year, on the same ground. The

Practical Considerations. 175

| eorn fields alternate more or less with pastures, and

there is just enough small grain to breed and nourish the
first brood of chinch bugs which pass into the corn at
harvest time and which scatter over the country, by breed-
ing and harboring in the corn fields. Not to mention the
different means to be employed in counteracting the ravages
of this insect, a diversified agriculture is undoubtedly one
of the most effectual. It must necessarily follow that the
more extensively any given crop is cultivated to the exclu-
sion of other crops the more will the peculiar insects which
depredate upon it become unduly and injuriously abundant.
The Chinch bug is confined in its depredations to the
grasses and cereals. Alternate your timothy, wheat, barley,
corn, ete., upon which it flourishes, with any of the numer-
ous crops on which it can not flourish, and you very
materially affect its power for harm. A crop of corn or
wheat grown on a piece of land entirely free from chinch
bugs will not suffer to the same extent as a crop grown on
land where the insects have been breeding and harboring.
This fact is becoming partially recognized, and already
hemp, flax and castor beans are to some extent cultivated
in the States mentioned. But there are many other
valuable root and forage plants that may yet be introduced
and grown as field crops.

Of root crops that would escape the ravages of the
winged locusts, and which would grow in ordinary seasons,
and furnish excellent food for stock, may be mentioned
turnips, ruta bagas, mangel wurzel, carrots (especially the
large Belgian), parsnips and beets. Of tubers that are not
so profitable but of which it would be well to plant small
quantities in locust districts, for the reason, as my friend
A.S. Fuller, of New York, suggests, that they grow with
such ease, and are less likely to be injured by the insects,
the Chinese Yam, Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tube-

N76 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

rosus), and the Chufa (Cyperus esculentus) are worthy of
trial. Turnips, of which the insects are especially fond,
kohlrabi, carrots, and the like, may be saved when they
come late, by cutting off the tops and covering the roots —
with earth—the tops making excellent food for milch cows.
The earth should be removed again as soon as possible to
prevent the rotting of the roots.

LEGISLATION.

Too much stress can not be laid on the advantage of co-
Operation and concert of action, and legislation both to
induce and to oblige action is important. In every com-
munity there are those who persist in doing nothing to
prevent locust injury. These indifferents frequently bring
ruin not only upon themselves, but upon more persevering
neighbors, and any law will prove beneficial that will
oblige every able-bodied man to work one or more days,
either in the fall in destroying the eggs, or in the spring in
killing the young insects, whenever the township trustees,
at the request of a given number of citizens of the town-
ship, may call them to such work under special provisions
similar to those of existing road laws.

It is a gratifying indication of the increasing apprecia-
tion of economic entomology that, while three years ago
the mere suggestion to enact laws for the suppression of
injurious insects would have been, and was, received by
our legislators with ridicule; yet, during the winter of
1876-7, several States have seen fit to pass acts that have
for object the destruction of this locust, or the relief of the
suffering and destitution it so often entails—not to men~
tion the appropriation made by Congress for a special
investigation. The following are the State laws that have
been passed :

Practical Considerations. 177

MISSOURI.—AN Acr TO ENCOURAGE THE DESTRUCTION OF
GRASSHOPPERS.

Be wt enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri, as
follows -

SEcTIoN 1. Any person who shall gather, or cause to be gathered
by any person in his employ, eggs of the Rocky Mountain locust or
grasshopper, at any time after they are deposited in the earth in the
autumn of any year, and before they are hatched the following
spring, shall be entitled to a bounty of five dollars for each and
every bushel of eggs thus gathered, or for any quantity less than
one bushel, bounty at the same rate, to be paid, one-half by the
State and one-half by the county in which they are gathered.

Sec. 2. Any person who shall gather, collect and kill, or cause

_to be so collected and killed, young and unfledged grasshoppers in

the month of March, shall be entitled to a bounty of one dollar for
each bushel, and for the month of April, tifty cents per bushel, and
for the month of May, twenty-five cents per bushel, to be paid in
the, same manner as in the preceding section.

Sec. 8. Any person claiming bounty under this act, shall pro-
duce the eggs and grasshoppers thus gathered or killed, as the case
may be, before the clerk of the county court in which such eggs or
grasshoppers were gathered or killed, within ten days ther eafter,
whereupon said clerk shall administer to such person the following
oath or affirmation: You do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case
may be,) that the eggs (or grasshoppers, as the case may be,) pro-
duced by you, were taken and gathered by you, or by person
or persons in your employ, or under your control, and within this
county and State.

Sec. 4. The clerk shall forthwith destroy said eggs by burning
the same and give to the person proving up the same under his hand
and seal, a certificate setting forth in a plain handwriting, without
interlineation, the amount of eggs or grasshoppers produced and
destroyed by him, and the name and residence of such person pro-
ducing the same, which certificate shall be in the following form:

STATE OF MISSOURI,

SOwNDy OF:.. 2.5.24.

Minisis to certify that... .. 2.5... 1m) the; CouMby Cis sna.44 .- Jo JB
did this day prove before me that he had gathered, or caused to be
BME TOO re Gietats cis )s <s Ol, CORE Cee k an: _..-grasshoppers, and is
entitled tothe sum of.../.2...... dollars’ andes. cents.

Given under my hand and seal of my office, this
Spotl tas day afer AUD ISE a,

Weed or Stems -A. B., Clerk County Court.

Which certificate shall be received a:d taken by the collector of
revenue of the county in which the same was given, and such

12

¢

178 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

collector shall be allowed pay out of the county and State Treasury,
one-half from each.

Sec. 5. Such clerk shall keep a register of all such certificates
given by him, in a book which he shall keep for that purpose, in
which he shall note down every certificate granted by him, the
number and amount, and to whom granted, and transmit a certified
copy of such register, under the seal of the court, to the Treasurer
of the State, who shall not allow and pay any certificate, which
does not correspond with such register.

Sec. 6. Such clerk shall receive for his services as aforesaid,
one dollar for such certified copy of the register, and the regular
fee for the certificate and seal, and ten cents for each certificate
granted under this act, all to be paid out of the treasury of his county.

Src. 7. As the object of this act is the rapid destruction of the
locust the ensuing spring, it shall take effect and be in force from
and after its passage.

Approved February 23, 1877.

This act is drawn up after the form recommended in my 8th
Report, and reprinted in the Omaha pamphlet. Section 3,
requiring persons claiming bounty, to carry from all parts
of the county, the eggs or young insects collected, is de-
fective, as those living near the county seat will have
most advantage and inducement. It would be better
to empower the Township Trustee, or the Street Commis-
sioner, to receive and measure the eggs or young insects,
and to issue certificates setting forth the number of bushels
destroyed—the certificates to be filed with the County Clerk.

KANSAS—AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF GRASS-
HOPPERS AND TO PUNISH FOR VIOLATION OF THIS ACT.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas:

Section 1. That the township trustees of the different town-
ships, and the mayors of cities which are not included in any township
of any county within this State, are hereby authorized and it is made
their duty, when so requested, in writing, by fifteen of the legal
voters of the township or city, to issue orders to the road overseers
of the different road districts within their respective townships or
cities, to warn out all able-bodied males between the ages of twelve
and fifty years within their respective districts for the purpose of
destroying locusts or migratory insects. — ; ‘<

Src. 2. It shall be the duty of road overseers, immediately
after receiving said orders, to proceed at once to warn out all persons
liable under section one of this act, giving notice of the time and

Practical Considerations. 179

place of meeting, and the tools to be used, and the kind of work
expected to be performed, and all work shall be done and performed
under the direction of the road overseers.

Sec. 3. Any persons over eighteen years of age warned out asis
provided in this act, may pay the road overseer the sum of one
dollar per day for the time so warned out, and in case any persons
shall fail to perform labor under this act or paying the sum of one
dollar when so warned out, shall be adjudged guilty of a misde-
meanor, and on conviction, shall be fined the sum of three dollars
for each day so failing orrefusing, and the moneys so collected shall
be expended by the road overseers in the destruction of grasshoppers
in their respective road districts.

Src. 4. For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this
act the road overseer is authorized to enter upon the premises of any
person lying within the township where such order of the township
trustee is in force, with a sufficient number of hands and teams to
_ perform such labor as he may deem necessary for the public good.

Src. 5. It shall be the duty of the Secretary of the State Board
of Agriculture, immediately after the passage of this act, to com-
pile in circular form all information relating to the manner and
means heretofore used for the extermination of grasshoppers, and
send at least ten copies of the same to each township trustee in the
State.

Sec. 6. This act shall take effect and be in forcefrom and after
its publication once in the Commonwealth. —

Approved March 6, 1877.

AN ACT PROVIDING FOR A CONCERT OF ACTION BY SENATORIAL
DISTRICTS FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF GRASSHOPPERS.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas -

Section 1. That in any senatorial district in the State of
Kansas, where trouble is anticipated from the ravages of young
grasshoppers, in the year 1877, and any subsequent year thereafter,
it shall be lawful for the counties in said senatorial district to co-
operate together in the way and manner herein provided, for the
destruction of the same.

Src. 2. The chairman of the board of county commissioners in
the county having the largest number of inhabitants in a senatorial
district, where two or more counties form said district, may notify
the chairman of each of the boards of county commissioners of the
remaining counties in said district, of the time and place when
the chairmen of the several boards of commissioners of the respec-
tive counties forming said senatorial district shall hold a joint
meeting.

Src. 3. At such meeting two of their number shall be chosen to
act as chairman and secretary, and the proceedings of the meeting
shall be published in all the newspapers printed in the senatorial
district.

Sec. 4. Said meeting shall designate the manner of procedure

180 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

by road overseers, and what day or days the young grasshoppers
should be driven from the cultivated land on the unburnt prairie or
places of destruction, and shall also designate on what day or days
the grasshoppers shall be destroyed, by burning or otherwise, in
said senatorial district, giving at least ten days’ notice of the same |
by publishing in the newspapers of the said district. |

Src. 5. The board of commissioners of each county shall notify |
the road overseers of said county of the time fixed upon by the
joint meeting for the driving and burning, or destroying by other
means, of the grasshoppers in the district ; said notice to be given
to said overseers as soon as practicable after the same shall have |
been determined by the joint meeting.

SEc. 6, Said road overseers shallimmediately notify the residents
of his road district of the time designated and the manner of pro- |
cedure, in order to carry out the provisions of this act. He shall -
also specify what tools or implements will be required of each
resident in performing the labor required of him; and such notice —
may be enforced the same as in the acts authorizing road overseers
to warn out the residents to perform road labor ; and a refusal shall
subject such persons refusing to the same penalties as are provided |
by law in such cases.

Sec. 7. The road overseers shall direct the manner of perform-
ing the labor, and have the supervision of the same, and shall keep
a list of the names of those who shall perform labor, and shall certify
the number of days’ work performed by each, and shall place such
certified list in the possession of the board of county commissioners
of his county.

Sec. 8. It shall be lawful for two or more senatorial districts to
co-operate together under the provisions of this act, on a basis of
action which they may agree upon.

Src. 9. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after
its publication in the daily Commonwealth.

Approved March 7, 1877.

Both these acts look to compulsory work and concert
of action, and in these respects are preferable to bounty
acts, and will, without doubt, be productive of more good
to the community at less expense to the State. The ob-
jects of the two acts should, I think, have been combined —
in one.

MINNESOTA—An Act 10 PROVIDE FOR THE DESThUCTION OF
GRASSHOPPERS AND THEIR EGGS.
Be ut enacted by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota :

Section 1. There shall be paid by this State, out of any moneys
in the treasury thereof, not otherwise appropriated, to any person

Practical Considerations. 181

or persons living within any of the counties in said State afflicted
by grasshoppers, the following bounties for catching and destroying
of the same, and the destruction of their eggs.

Sec. 2. The sum of one dollar per bushel for grasshoppers
caught previous to the twenty-fifth day of May next. The sum of
fifty cents per bushel from the said twenty-fifth day of May to the
tenth day of June. The sum of twenty-five cents per bushel from
the said tenth day of June to the first day of July, and twenty cents
per bushel from the said first day of July to the first day of Octo-
ber next.

Suc. 8. There shall also be paid in the same manner, the sum of
fifty cents per gallon for any and all grasshopper eggs taken and
destroyed by any person or persons.

Sec. 4. There shall be appointed by the Governor a competent
person in each township in the several counties so afflicted by grass-
hoppers, who shall be a resident of the township for which he shall
be appointed, to receive, measure and destroy the grasshoppers and
their eggs delivered to him by any person or persons catching and
taking the same, which said person so appointed shall take and
subscribe an oath for the faithful discharge of his duties, which
oath, together with the certificate of appointment, shall be filed in
the office of the county auditor, and he shall receive as compensa-
tion for his services such sum as the county commissioner may deter-
mine, to be paid out of the funds of the county ; and in case of
necessity, when he can not perform the duties of his office, said
measurer shall have authority and be empowered to appoint a suit-
able and competent person his assistant, which assistant shall be
required to take and subscribe the same oath and be subject to the
same penalties as the said measurer.

Sec. 5. The person receiving and measuring the grasshoppers
and their eggs as aforesaid, shall measure and immediately and
effectually destroy the same, and keep an exact account of all the
grasshoppers and their eggs received by him and the names of the
persons delivering the same, and shall issue a certificate for the
amount of grasshoppers and their eggs to the person delivering the
same. And he shall, at the end of each week after commencing to
receive and measure the same, and on the second day of June, on
the eleventh day of said month, on the second day of Juiy, and on
the second day of October next, make areport to the county auditor
of all the grasshoppers and their eggs measured by him, the number
of certificates issued, and the names of the persons to whom he

issued the same ; and the county auditor shall examine the same

and file it in his office, which report shall be subject to public in-
spection ; and the county auditor shall, at the end of each week
atter he shall have received the first of said reports, transmit a copy
of the said reports to the Governor, who shall, as soon as the sum
hereby appropriated shall have been expended in the payment of
said bounties, notify all persons interested therein of such fact by a
publication of such notice in some newspaper printed and published
at the city of Saint Paul, in saidState of Minnesota, for three suc-
cessive days.

182 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

Sec. 6. Fora failure on the part of said measurer to perform
any of his duties under this act, or for any mismeasurement of
such grasshoppers and their eggs, he shall be deemed to be guilty
of a misdemeanor, and be subject to pay a fine of not less than
ten dollars nor more than one hundred dollars, or be imprisoned in
the county jail for a term of not less than thirty nor more than
ninety days, in a suit or proceeding to be prosecuted in the name
of the State of Minnesota, in the same manner as is provided by
law in other cases of misdemeanor.

Sec. 7. Upon the presentation of such certificate to the county
auditor, he shall issue a certificate to the person entitled thereto for
the amount due him, (a form of which certificate shall be furnished
by the State Auditor), and shall make an order upon the State Au-
ditor for the amount thereof, and the State Auditor shall draw his.
warrant upon the State Treasurer for that amount, in favor of the
parties holding said certificates, which shall be paid by the State
Treasurer on presentation : Provided, That all certificates presented
to the county auditor for payment shall be by him filed and pre-
served in his office, and he shall present such certificates to the
board of county commissioners, who. shall audit the same in the
manner now provided by law for auditing accounts against coun-
ties ; and no money shall be drawn from the State Treasury until
such certificates have been audited and allowed in the manner
herein provided. And that no money shall be paid under the pro-
visions of this act at any time prior to the fifteenth day of July,
A.D. eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, and that the money here-
by appropriated shall only apply to certificates duly made and filed
with the Auditor of State on or before said day; that at the time
after the State Auditor shall ascertain the ‘total amount of all
claims and certificates so filed, and if the same shall exceed in
amount the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, then the said
claims shall be paid pro rata, and no other or greater amount than
said sum of one hundred thousand dollars shall ever be paid under
the provisions of this act: And provided further, That if the
amount hereby appropriated is not sufficient to pay the certificates.
in full, the balance shall be paid by the counties respectively, ac-
cording to the amount due on said certificates as issued by such
county.

Sec. 8. Every male inhabitant of the several townships in the
said afflicted counties, being above the age of twenty-one years and
under the age of sixty years, excepting paupers, idiots and lunatics,
shall be assessed by the board of supervisors of said township to
work one day in each week in said township, during the period
hereinbefore mentioned, for the paying of bounties for the purpose
of catching and destroying grasshoppers and their eggs, for five
weeks from the time said grasshoppers shall become large enough
to be taken ; and the amount of work to be so assessed shull not
exceed five days in all.

Sec. 9. Thesupervisors aforesaid shall make a list of the names
of all persons against whom said tax shall have been assessed, and
place iu a column opposite each name on said list, the amount of

Practical Considerations. 1838

labor assessed against such person, and shall direct the town clerk
to make a certified copy of each list, after which the town clerk
shall deliver the several copies to the respective overseers of the
highways of said townships.

Sec. 10. The overseers of highways shall give at least two
days’ notice to all persons assessed to work as aforesaid, living
within the limits of their respective districts, of the time and
places where and when they are to appear for that purpose, and
with what implements. S408

Sec. 11. Every person liable to work, as provided for in this
act, may commute for the same at the rate of one dollar per day, in
which case such commutation money shall be paid to the chairman
of the board of supervisors, to be applied and expended by him for
the destruction of grasshoppers and .their eggs, and he shall be
authorized and required to hire and engage some suitable and effi-
cient person to work in the place of said person so commuting, and
to pay him the sum of one dollar per day for his services; and
every person intending to commute for his assessment shall, within
five days after he is notified to appear and work as aforesaid, pay
the commutation money for the work required of him by said
notice, and the commutation shall not be considered as made until
such money is paid.

SkEc. 12. Every person so assessed and notified, who shall will-
fully neglect or refuse to commute or work as provided by this
act, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction
thereof, be liable to pay a fine of not less than two dollars nor
more than ten dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail not
more than ten days, or both, in the discretion of the court, in a
suit to be prosecuted in the name of the State of Minnesota, in the
same manner as is provided by law for prosecutions of misde-
meanors.

Sec. 13. There shall be appropriated, out of any moneys in the
treasury of this State, not otherwise appropriated, for the purpose
of carrying out the provisions of this act, the sum of one hundred
thousand dollars.

Src. 14. The board of county commissioners of any county in
this State afflicted by grasshoppers, shall have the right, if in their
judgment they see fit, to employ one or more persons in each town-
ship in said county with such implements or mechanical contriv-
ances as may prove most efficient to destroy the grasshoppers, from
the first day of April to the first day of August in each year, paying
such persons either by the day or a specified sum for the amount
captured and destroyed. The compensation of such person shall
be paid out of the general fund of the county : Provided further,
That parties employed and paid by the county commissioners shall
not receive any other or further compensation under the provisions
of this act.

Sec. 15. This act shall take effect and be in force from and
after its passage.

Approved March 1, 1877.

184 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

More complicated than the others, this Minnesota act
has certain special features which are intended to meet the
peculiar emergency in that State. Yet I do not think the |
act is so clear or will prove so effectual as the first Kansas _
act. In addition to this bounty act, the Minnesota Legis-
lature passed another, appropriating $75,000 for the pur-
chase and distribution of seed grain to the sufferers from
locust injuries.

NEBRASKA— AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF
GRASSHOPPERS.

Whereas the State of Nebraska has, for the past three years,
been devastated by the grasshoppers, thereby greatly injuring the
agricultural and commercial interests of the State ; and whereas
these interests are liable to be seriously damaged in the future by
the recurrence of the pests aforesaid ; therefore,

Be tt enacted by the Legislature of the State of Nebraska .

SECTION 1. .That the supervisors of each road district in this
State shall, at the time when the grasshoppers shall have been
hatched out, and before the same shall become full-fledged and fly,
notify each able-bodied male resident of his district, between the
ages of sixteen and sixty years, to perform two days’ labor, at such
time and at such place and in such manner as shall by said super-
visors be deemed most efficient in the destruction of the grasshop-
pers ; said notices shall be given in the same manner as is provided
by law forthe notice to work upon public highways.

SEc. 2. Cities of the first and second class shall be governed by
the provisions of this act, and it shall be the duty of the mayor of
such cities to appoint, not exceeding two supervisors for each
ward, to oversee the labor to be performed under the provisions of
this act.

Src. 3. In case it shall appear that two days’ work is not suffi-
cient to destroy the grasshoppers in any district or ward, and it
shall further appear that more time can be profitably employed
in the destruction of the grasshoppers, the supervisors of each ward
or road district may require from the persons liable to the provis-
ions of this act, not exceeding ten days’ labor in addition to the
time hereinbefore mentioned ; and it shall be the duty of such
supervisor to give to each person who shall have performed labor
under the provisions of this section a receipt for the number of
days’ labor performed, and the supervisor shall upon oath report to
the city or county authorities the names and amount of lahor per-
formed by each person.

Sec. 4. it shall be the duty of all persons subject to the pro-

Practical Considerations. 185

visions of this act to attend when notified as herein provided, and
labor under the direction of the supervisor of their respective dis-
trict or ward. Any person who, aiter being notified, shall refuse,
neglect, or fail to comply with the provisions of this act, shall for-
feit and pay to the county or city treasurers, as the case may be,
the sum of ten dollars, together with costs of suit, which sum
shall be collected by suit before any justice of the peace within the
county, in an action to be brought in the name of the city or
county.

Sro.5. The supervisor shall report, under oath, to the city or
county authorities the names of all persons who shall have refused
or failed to comply with the provisions of this act.

Sec. 6. This being a case of emergency, this act shall take effect
and be in force from and after its passage.

In reference to bounty laws, the experience of Minnesota,
where they were in force in some counties in 1875, is val-
uable, and the State Commissioners did not hesitate to
recommend the system after the county trials, imperfect
as they were, and commenced as they were, in most cases,
too late in the season. It was clearly shown that in one
township $30,000 worth of crops was saved by an expendi-
ture of $6,000. Nicollet county paid $25,053 for 25,053
bushels of locusts, but the price paid by other counties
was higher ; in fact, much too high. A good law, once
enacted and on the statute books, might not be called into
operation for many years, but would beyond all doubt

' serve an admirable purpose in the event of a locust inva-

sion. The following are what I conceive should be the
essential features of an efficient bounty law: 1. The bounty
should be paid out of the State Treasury; or it should be
graded and borne equally, one-third by the local Township,
one-third by the County, and one-third by the State. 2.
The bounty should be immediately available to those earn-
ing it. 3. The Act should, so far as possible, tend to the
destruction of the eggs. 4. After the eggs, the destruction
of the newly-hatched locusts should be encouraged by the
Act. A bushel of the newly-hatched insects will contain
thirty or more times as many individuals as will a bushel

186 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

of the pup, and, moreover, their destruction prevents the
subsequent injury. It would be folly to pay sixty centsa J]
bushel for them later in the season when they are nearly
full-grown and have done most of the harm they are capa-
ble of doing. The price, therefore, should vary with the
season; and while, in latitude 39°, 75 cents or $1.00 should
be offered in March, the price should diminish to 50 cents
in April, 25 cents in May, and 10 cents in June. As the
dates of hatching vary with the latitude, so the law should
vary in the matter of dates, according to the requirements
of each particular State. In addition to the foregoing re-
quirements of such an act, every precaution should be
taken to prevent fraud and dishonesty in obtaining the
money.

The laws obliging proper labor will prove more bene-
ficial to a community than the. bounty laws, and the labor
is best performed, first in destroying the eggs in the fall,
and next in destroying the young insects after the bulk of
them have hatched out in the spring. |

In the more thinly settled parts of the country, laws may
be more or less ineffectual, so far as the general destruction
of the insects is concerned, though they will even there be
one of the best means of relieving destitution ; but in more ©
thickly settled sections they will accomplish both results.

CHAPTER IX.

LOCUST RAVAGES EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

RAVAGES OF MIGRATORY LOCUSTS IN THE ATLANTIC
STATES.

WeE have already seen how the true Rocky Mountain
Locust, which rarely reaches the Mississippi, may be dis-
tinguished from the Red-legged species, which often mixes
with it and is common to a much larger extent of country,
and reaches to the Atlantic. We have also seen that the
ravages of migratory locusts between the Mississippi and
the Rocky Mountains, and probably to the Pacific, are
confined to the one, long-winged species, (spretus). “ How
then,” will naturally be asked, ‘‘do you account for the
ravages of migratory locusts in the Atlantic States, since
swarms have been known in those States to fly over the
country and commit sad havoc, and since you tell us
that the Reg-legged species 1s incapable of such migra-
tions?” This question, which was first properly answered
in my 7th Report, I will now proceed to elucidate.

As to migrating locusts doing great damage in some of
the Eastern States during certain years, there can be no
doubt of the fact. Harris, in his Treatise on Jnjurrous
Insects, gives an account extracted from the Travels of
President Dwight, wherein they are recorded as being
most destructive in Vermont in 1797 and 1798, and as
collecting in clouds, rising in the air and taking extensive

flights — even covering persons employed in raising a
(187)

188 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

church steeple, who, in such position, still saw the insects
flying far above their heads. He also quotes from Wil-
liamson’s History of Maine, that in 1749 and 1754 they
were very numerous and voracious; that “in 1743 and
1756 they covered the whole country and threatened to
_ devour everything green.” Among the communications
which I received in 1874 was the following, descriptive of
locust ravages in New Hampshire :

Dear Sir: I see a note in the New York Tribune requesting
those from the locust regions to send you specimens of the variety.
I send you a vial of them to-day by mail. They have been quite
plenty in the Merrimack Valley on some farms. They have eaten
all of our garden vegetables; in others they left us a small share.
‘The small ones are the most plenty and the ones that have done the
most mischief. I should like to know if they are of the same
variety that infested the West.

. Yours truly, LEWIS COLBY.

BoscaAwEN, MERRIMACK Co., N. H., Sept. 17, 1874.

The following account by Dr. U. T. True of the appear-
ance of these insects in Cumberland county, Maine, in 1821,
is so circumstantial that I give it in full, as quoted by Mr.
S. H. Scudder :*

During the haying season the weather was dry and hot, and these
hungry locusts stripped the leaves from the clover and herds-grass,
leaving nothing but the naked stems. In consequence, the hay-
crop was seriously diminished in value. So ravenous had they
become that they would attack clover, eating it into shreds. Rake
and pitchfork handles, made of white ash and worn to a glossy
smoothness by use, would be found nibbled over by them if left
within their reach.

As soon as the hay was cut and they had eaten every living thing,
they removed to the adjacent crops of grain, completely stripping
the leaves: climbing the naked stalks they would eat off the stems
of wheat and rye just below the head, and leave them to drop to
the ground. I well remember assisting in sweeping a large cord
over the heads of wheat after dark, causing the insects to drop to
the ground, where most of them would remain during the night.
During harvest time it was my painful duty, with a younger brother,
to pick up the fallen wheat heads for threshing; they amounted to
several bushels.

* Hayden's Report on the Geological Survey of Nebraska; and ‘‘ The Distri-
bution of Insects in New Hampshire,” p. 375.

- Locust Ravages Hast of the Mississippi. 189

Their next attack was upon the Indian corn and potatoes. They
stripped the leaves and ate out the silk from the corn, so that it was
rare to harvest a full ear. Among forty or fifty bushels of corn
spread out in the corn-room, not an ear could be found not mottled
with detached kernels.

While these insects were more than usually abundant in the
town generally, it was in the field I have described that they
appeared in the greatest intensity. After they had stripped every-
thing from the field, they began to emigrate in countless numbers.
They crossed the highway and attacked the vegetable garden. I
remember the curious appearance of a large, flourishing bed of
red onions, whose tops they first literally ate up, and not content
with that, devoured the interior of the bulbs, leaving the dry exter-
nal covering in place. The provident care of my mother, who
covered the bed with chaff from the stable floor, did not save them,
while she was complimented the next year for so successfully sow-
ing the garden down to grass. The leaves were stripped from the
apple trees. They entered the house in swarms, reminding one of
the locusts of Egypt, and, as we walked, they would rise in count-
less numbers and fly away in clouds.

As the nights grew cooler they collected on the spruce and hem-
lock stumps and log fences, completely covering them, eating the
moss and decomposed surface of the wood, and leaving the surface
clean and new. They would perch on the west side of a stump,
where they could feel the warmth of the sun, and work around to
the east side in the morning as the sun reappeared. The foot-paths
in the fields were literally covered with their excrements.

During the latter part of August and the first of September, when
the air was still dry, and for several days in succession a high wind
prevailed from the northwest, the locusts frequently rose in the air
to an immense height. By looking up at the sky in the middle of
a clear day, as nearly as possible in the direction of the sun, one
may descry a locust ata great height. These insects could thus be
seen in swarms, appesring like so many thistle-blows, as they
expanded their wings and were borne along toward the sea before
the wind; myriads of them were drowned in Casco bay, and I
remember hearing that they frequently dropped on the decks of
coasting vessels. Curt loads of dead bodies remained in the fields,
forming in spots a tolerable coating of manure.

Mr. I. 8. Smith says that he has seen “ hackmatack trees
almost covered with them, and entirely stripped of their
leaves.” * |

All these accounts agree in referring the injury to the
common Red-legged Locust; but as I am fully persuaded
that this species, as found in Illinois and Missouri, is inca-

* Rep. Connecticut State Bd. of Agr., 1872, p. 363.

190 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

pable of any extended flight,* I could not help feeling that
some other species had been confounded with it, and had
played the part of migratory locust in the White Moun-
tain regions of Maine and New Hampshire. It was with
satisfaction, therefore, that, upon examining the locusts
sent me by Mr. Colby, I found them to belong to the
species defined in Chapter I, as At/anis, which is smaller
than either the Rocky Mountain or the Red-legged species,
but in structure and relative length of wing much more
nearly resembles the former than the latter; in other words,
its relative length of wing enables it to fly with almost the
same facility as its Rocky Mountain congener.

INJURY FROM OTHER, NON-MIGRATORY LOCUSTS.

Almost every year, in some part or other of the country,
we hear reports of injury by locusts. In 1868, for instance,
while the Rocky Mountain species was attracting attention,
as I have already stated, (p. 37), in many parts of the
West, other non-migratory species were extremely inju-
rious in the Mississippi Valley, and in the Kastern States.
In Ohio they appeared in countless myriads during that
year, and at the meeting of the Cincinnati Wine Growers’
- Society 1t was stated that they invaded the vineyards,
destroying entire rows, defoliating the vines and sucking
out the juices of the berries. In the same year I saw them
in countless millions in many parts of Illinois and Missouri.
They actually stripped many corn-fields in these States,
and had not the crops been unusually abundant, would
have caused some suffering. They were es) destructive
to flower and vegetable gardens.

* IT do not mean by this that it is incapable of rising in the air; but 1am quite
sure that as found in St. Louis county it is incapable of any such flights as spretus
takes. In the higher parts of the country, whether Hast or West, the power of
flight may be greater.

ie =a

Locust Ravages Hast of the Mississippi. 191

In 1869, they were, if anything, worse than in 1868. [|
remember that in the vicinity of St. Louis, in addition to
their ordinary injuries, they stripped the tops of Norway
Spruce, Balsam Fir and European Larch; took the blos-
soms off Lima beans ; severed grape stems, and ate num-
erous holes into apples and peaches, thereby causing them
to rot. They were indeed abundant all over Illinois.
Missouri, Iowa, and even Kentucky; but attracted no
attention Kast.

In 1871 they were again very destructive, especially
Kast, as the following items will show:

The grasshoppers (locusts) have been more numerous and de-
structive this year, in Maine, than perhaps ever before. This was
partly owing to the dry weather, and with the advent of the rainy
season we hope their career will be somewhat checked. In this
county they are thick, but in some of the central portions of the
State they literally swarm, devouring nearly every green thing
before them. They did much injury to the grass fields, and, now
that is cut, they have betaken themselves to the cultivated crops.
In some cases, whole fields of corn and beans have been completely
stripped. Even the potatoes have not been spared.—[ Country
Gentleman, Aug. 10, 1871, speaking of Insects in Maine.

Grasshoppers are reported to have very seriously injured the
corn, grass and grain crops (and in some cases orchards and nur-
series) of the counties of Androscoggin, Franklin, Knox, Kennebec,
Lincoln, Oxford, Piscataquis, Penobscot, Waldo and Somerset, in
Maine. So serious has been the damage that the subject was made
atopic at the recent State Agricultural Convention in that State.
In Androscoggin county, they injured pastures greatly, and affected
the condition and price of stock. Some grain fields were protected
by drawing a rope across the heads at sunset, thus brushing off the
insects and preventing feeding. In Franklin county, a field of
twelve acres of sweet corn was only saved by keeping a man in it
continually to drive out the grasshoppers. One man in York county
stopped their passage to his fields by building a brush fence around
them.—[ American Agriculturist, 1871.

These pests (the locusts) have been numerous and destructive
during the past month, in some portions of the Eastern States. In
Sagadahoc county, Maine, the crops and pastures were injured by
them very much; also in Hancock county. In Franklin, many
fields of grain were cut to save the crops from them and for feed-
ing. In Oxford, oats were ‘‘ eaten entirely down, as clean as though
fed upon by sheep.” In some portions of Plymouth county, Mass.,

192 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

they are reported to have eaten everything green. In Caledonia
county, Vermont, they have been very destructive. All through
Windsor they have been ‘‘a terrible scourge.” In Orleans they
are reported abundant, and in Windhamthey have done ‘‘ much in-
jury to some of the crops.” In Wayne county, Pennsylvania, also,
they are reported to have done much damage.—[ Monthly Report
Dep. of Agr. for August and September, 1871.

In 1872 they were again injurious East :

The grasshoppers are making great havoc on the grass, grain
and corn. For &space of about one and a half miles square, they
are destroying almost everything. Clover is trimmed up all but the
head ; oat fields look like fields of rushes coming up to the height
of sixteen to eighteen inches without leaf or head. The leaves of
wheat and their kernels are eaten out. These hoppers move back
and forth two or three times a day, and whole sections are almost
aie with them.—[ Mirror and Farmer (New Hampshire), August

0, 1872.

In 1874, again, much injury ‘by them was reported in the
Mississippi Valley and eastward, and a few extracts will
suffice to indicate how numerous they often were :

The grasshopers destroyed four acres of my wheat Jast fall; ate
and destroyed my timothy twice ; sowed the ground again’ this
spring, but as there are still plenty of hoppers, there is not much
hope for a stand.—[Letter extract from G. Pauls, Eureka, Mo.,
Nov. 10, 1874.

Some of our good friends in Suffolk county. Virginia, were un-
duly excited this summer over the idea that the Western destructive
grasshopper, Caloptenus spretus of Uhler, had found its way to the
“ sacred soil of Virginia.” There was no denying the fact that
myriads of grasshoppers were devouring nearly ‘“‘every green
thing,” even settling on the trunks and limbs of trees, and gnawing
the bark in a most unkind manner ; and as it appeared to be some-
thing altogether foreign to the locality, of course it must be the
Western pest. Specimens were forwarded to us, however, and a
glance was sufficient to show us there was no need for alarm, as it
was quite a common species in this part of the United States, and
though rather too plentiful in this particular locality, would not
spread or become the terror that its Western distant relative has
proved. The insect is known as the Acridiwm Amertcanum, and 1s
of large size, often measuring over two and a half inches in length.
—[C. R. Dodge, in Rural Carolinian, November, 1874. .

In 1875, again, the indigenous species were very abun-
dant, and were often supposed to be the genuine spretus, the

Locust Ravages Hast of the Mississippi. 193

young of which were at the time devastating portions of
the West. The reports of this last in Jefferson, Franklin
and Moniteau counties in the Monthly Report of the De-
partment of Agriculture for November and December of
that year, undoubtedly refer to indigenous species, and are
a sample of the reliability of much of the entomological
information that comes through that channel. They were
troublesome not only in the Mississippi Valley, but in the
Hast, for I know that they did great damage to oats and
meadows in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and the following
items doubtless refer to Aélanis and femur-rubrum, and
will show how injurious they were in Massachusetts :
GRASSHOPPERS IN Boston.—We did not anticipate that Boston
proper would ever be inconvenienced by the pests which have
proved so destructive out West, but it is a fact that grasshoppers are
so numerous at the South End that they destroy the flowers in the
back yards to such an extent that hens are hired or bought to clear
the premises and save the ornamental plants which adorn the prem-
ises. These insects are not of the western pattern, but are native

productions. If their ravages continue, it is possible some of our
western friends will be called upon to raise subscriptions for the

_ relief of the floriculturists of Boston.—[ Boston Journal.

I venture to ask your advice in a grasshopper matter. Three
years ago a party of farmers and others in this commonwealth, tired
of granite hills, gravel banks and sand flats, and wishing some little
latent fertility in the original soil—combined to effect, and did effect,

_ the reclamation from the sea of about 1400 acres of what originally

was ‘salt marsh.’ We are amply satisfied of the fertility of this
land, and so far, all is good. Last summer, however, this land and
adjoining territory was scourged with a plague of locusts or grass-
hoppers. Whether they came in such numbers owing to the diking
of these 1400 acres, or whether they would, last year, have come in
equal numbers whether the marsh was diked or not, we can not say.
Our question is this, and is at the same time the point upon which
‘we pray your advice : Can we do anything to diminish the number
of these pests for next year? We could, for example, flood this
whole tract of land until early spring. Would this be advisable ?
Any points you would be kind enough to give us on the matter,
would be thankfully received.—[Letter from C. Herschel, Boston,
Mass., latter part of October.

In short, during hot and dry years, which are favorable

to the multiplication of crickets and locusts, more or less
13

194. The Rocky Mountain Locust.

injury is done in all parts of the country, by species
indigenous to the different localities, but which in ordinary
seasons do not attract any special attention. |
The principal depredator in such cases, in the Mississippi
Valley, is the wide-spread Red-legged Locust, already
[ Fig. 37.] vas

described and illustrated, (p. 14), and so often confounded
with the true migrating Rocky Mountain species. The
next most injurious is the Differential Locust (Caloptenus
differentialis, Walk., Fig.37), a species at once distinguished
in the more typical specimens, from the preceding, not only
by its larger size, but by its brighter yellow and green colors.
The head and thorax are olive-brown, and the front wings
very much of the same color, and, without other marks, have
a brownish shade at base, the hind wings being tinged with
green; the hind thighs are bright yellow, especially below,
with the four black marks as in spretus, and the hind shanks —
[Fig. 38.] are yellow, with

p* black spines, and
a black ring near
the base. Next
in injuriousness
= comes the Two-
striped Locust,
TWO-sTRIPED Locust. (Caloptenus bivit-

tatus, Say, Fig. 38), also a larger species, of a dull, olive-
green color, the hind thighs conspicuously yellow beneath,
and with two yellow lines extending from above the eyes

Locust Ravages Hast of the Mississippi. 195

along each side of the thorax superiorly, and thence, more
distinctly on the front wings, narrowing and approaching
toward their tips, when closed. All these species belong to
the same genus as our Rocky Mountain Locust, and, except
in being unable to sustain long-continued flight,* agree
with it in habit. |
There are several locusts belonging to other genera which
are common over large areas from the Atlantic to the
Mississippi; and some of them, belonging to the genera
Acridium and Gidipoda have relatively longer wings than
the common Red-legged Locust, and consequently greater
power of flight. Yet they are seldom as injurious as the
short-winged Calopteni just enumerated, and the swarming
of Acridium Americanum (our largest species), as present-
ly described and as recorded in the paragraph from the
Rural Carolinian, (ante, p. 192), is quite exceptional.

LOCUST FLIGHTS IN ILLINOIS IN 18%5.

The manner in which some writers have clung to the
idea that the Rocky Mountain Locust must overrun Mis-
souri, Illinois, and the States to the East, in spite of oppos-

ing facts, can be accounted for only by inordinate love of

magnifying possible danger and of making as much of a
sensation as possible out of any misfortune that befalls a
community. A certain amount of apprehension is pardon-
able ; and that, under such apprehension, all sorts of

* Their power to sustain flight will increase as we approach the higher and drier
western country toward the mountains, and, I believe, according as the season of
their growth in any part of the country is hot and dry. The colors, also, become
brighter and lighter as we go west, with a tendency to increase of wing-length,
and a diminution of body-bulk. This is very noticeable in traveling over the
Western plains, where bdivittatus, for instance, which, ordinarily, is far more de-
structive than spretus is to gardens in Western Kansas and Colorado, loses much
of its dull, olive-green color, and is brighter- and lighter-colored and longer-
winged, on an average, than at St. Louis.

OG S. The Rocky Mountain Locust.

i a ee

insects, some of them having no relation to locusts, should
be mistaken for the Rocky Mountain pest, is natural with
persons who have had no acquaintance with it, and are
unfamiliar with its appearance, In Sept. of 1875, many
prominent papers of the West gave the news that the
dreaded swarms had finally’come into Illinois. In point:
of fact, large swarms of locusts did pass over the central
portion of that State, early in September, and more par-
ticularly over parts of Livingston, McLean, Vermillion,
Ford, and Champaign counties. Small and _ scattered
flights were also seen later in the month. Some writers
jumped to the conclusion that said swarms were of the
Rocky Mountain species, without, however, giving a par-

ticle of proof. There is nothing absolutely impossible in |

the occurrence of scattering swarms of the genuine spretus
in Illinois the year following a general invasion such as
we had in 1874; for while I have expressed the opinion
that the species will never do any damage east of the 94th
meridian, I have admitted that it may temporarily extend
to some distance beyond that line. But in 1875 we had
no reports of swarms passing over the country to the
Northwest or the northwest part of Illinois, prior to their.
occurrence in the middle counties, and I felt so confident
that the swarms were composed of indigenous species, that
I so stated my belief in the Chicago Hvening Journal of
Sept. 9th of that year, and expressed the opinion that they
had originated within the borders of the State ; that there
was no occasion for alarm, and that they would scarcely
be heard of after they settled. These opinions were subse-
quently justified by the facts ; for after taking every pains
to ascertain the truth, all specimens from such flights,
examined by competent persons, proved to be indigenous
species. We heard nothing of their ravages or of their
rising again and passing over the country to the south or

Locust Ravages Hast of the Mississippi. 197

east. Moreover, their flight seems to have been irregular,
and poorly sustained. Mr. H. P. Beach, County Judge of
Ford county, Ill., in sending me specimens, wrote, Sep-
tember 15 :

About ten days ago, myriads of grasshoppers flew southward
over town. Many of them came down, evidently unable to keep up
the journey. They seemed to be all the way from a hundred feet
to a quarter or half a mile high, or perhaps very much higher. In
looking up toward the sun—the only way they could be seen—the
appearance was much like that of a snow-storm looked at in the
same way. We have not heard from them since, and of course can
give you no idea from ‘‘ whence they cometh and whither they
goeth.”’ ;

Mr. B. F. Johnson, the Champaign (Ill.) correspondent
of the Country Gentleman, who supposed the species to be
_ spretus, also in speaking of these flights, wrote to that
paper (Sept. 16, 1875) :

When first seen, their movements and motions were so unlike
what I had conceived their flights to be, that it was not till several
disabled or partially exhausted insects had been caught, and their
identity with the Kansas species demonstrated, that I was convinced
of their true character. I had supposed that these creatures flew
in a manner as pigeons and ducks and geese do—straight ahead 1n
a given direction, and with a purpose. On the contrary, every
insect seemed to be out ona holiday, and acting independently of
all the others. While the vast mass slowly moved south, with an
inclination toward the east, there was a constant circularmovement
of a vast majority of the whole number of individuals. * *
When it got noised abroad that they were flying, the fact ola
a startling sensation. Would they increase in numbers till the sun
was darkened, and then descend and devour up every green thing,
and leave eggs for a progeny behind them that would repeat the
disaster next summer? ‘These fears were speedily dispelled when
their numbers were seen to diminish, and when it was considered
that all the grasshoppers which had passed over, did they come
down could make but small impression on the ten thousand square
miles of corn in Central Illinois.

Actual examination of specimens from these flying bev-
ics over Illinois, showed them to have been composed of
three species, viz., the Red-legged, the Atlantic and the
Differential locusts: in no instance was a specimen of

198 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

spretus seen. The several specimens obtained from Ford
county were all Atlanis ; a single specimen received from
Mr. H. J. Dunlap, of Champaign, was a male jfemur-
rubrum ; while specimens taken by Prof. Burrill, of the
Industrial University, at the same place, as well as others
from Norwood, Mercer county, sent to Prof. Thomas, were.
differentialis. The parties capturing these specimens are
not apt to fall into error, and are all positive that the
specimens submitted were from the flying bevies.

From these facts it results that two species, viz., femur-
rubrum and differentialis, though normally having no
migratory habit, and, as I believe, incapable of extended
flights, can actually assist in such flights. That the bulk
of these Illinois swarms was composed, however, of <A¢-
lanis, scarcely admits of a doubt. The other two, less
able to sustain Jengthened flight, would naturally be most
near the ground and most often captured ; while Aélanis,
which we now know to occur in this part of the country
as well as East, and to often display the migratory habit,
would fly higher.

There are two facts which it will be well to bearin mind
in this connection, as explaining the above phenomena.
The first is, that Atlanis was very common in Missouri,
even in fields where it had never been noticed before. It
prevailed to such an extent in Illinois, that around Carbon-
dale Prof. Thomas could not find a single specimen of the
typical femur-rubrum, and there was not a single specimen
of it among a number which he caused to be collected for
me.

The second fact is, that differentialis was also unusually
abundant. A letter from Mr. M. Brinkerhoff, of Onarga,
Illinois, dated October 18,1875, and accompanied by speci-
mens, describes them as in great numbers there, filling the

Locust Ravages Hast of the Mississippi. 199

ground with their eggs.* The following, which refers to
the same species, is also interesting :

While the migrating hopper committed such devastation west of
us, we here at Bluffton have the manor-born, in immense numbers.
A patch of potatoes and some sweet corn seemed in danger of being
consumed, when a flock of purple grackles, our crow blackbird, as
it is usually called, came to our rescue. The few days that they have
visited the patch has thinned out the hoppers amazingly. I never
before noticed that this bird was so useful in this respect ; and as
they are plenty, we may expect to be rid of the big grey fellows
(hoppers). They are more than twice the size of the Colorado hop-
per, and are nearly as bad on a ccrop when plenty. What saved our
little crop from utter destruction was an open field of land thickly
covered with wild chamomile, upon which they fairly swarmed.
On this we saw them as thick as the Colorados, in Sedalia or War-
rensburg.—|[S. Miller, in Rural World, August 14, 1875.

Though unusually common, yet differentialis, if I may
judge from my Own experience in our fields and around
Chicago, that year, compared only as one to fifty with
Atlanis, and it is doubtful if it formed a larger proportion
of the flights. How are these exceptional migrations of
local species to be explained? We know, from what has
preceded, that they have occurred at intervals in the East,
and we now have evidence that they may occur in any
part of the country ; and indeed local swarms were not
confined to Illinois in 1875, as they were also noticed in
Kentucky. I think the explanation is simple. The ex-
cessively hot, dry years of 1873 and 1874 permitted the
undue multiplication of these native species, and they
were already very troublesome in the latter year, (ante,
p. 192). The myriads that hatched out in 1875 were

* The eggs of Caloptenus differentialis may be distinguished from those of
spretus by the larger and more irregular size of the mass; by the greater num-
ber composing it ; by the somewhat larger size of the individual egg, which meas-
ures 0.19—0.22 inch in length ; by the coarser reticulations of the shell, and by the
brown color of the gummy fibrous matter that is intermixed with them and glues
them together. The color of the egg varies from yellow to deep carneous, the
latter prevailing, and the posterior or narrower end is always somewhat constricted
and darker. :

200 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

scarcely noticed at first, and made little impression on the
luxuriant vegetation that a wet and favorable season pro-
duced. By September, when a spell of dry weather cured
the grass and the locusts had acquired full growth, we can
imagine that they swarmed in much of the prairie country
of Central Illinois. Whenever they abound to an unusual
degree the migrating instinct is developed, just as it is.
under like circumstances in many other insects, as butter-
flies and beetles, that are normally non-migratory.
The reasons we can only surmise; but aside from
those of hunger, etc., previously suggested, the an-
noyance and inconvenience to which the females, while
attempting to oviposit, have to submit from their com-
panions, under conditions of excessive increase, may
have something to do with it. But mere increase in
numbers would not give to species like femur-rubrum
and differentialis, which are ordinarily heavy-bodied
and short winged, the power of extended flight; and
there is little doubt, in my mind, that the same excep-
tionally hot, dry seasons which permit this undue multi-
plication also modify the individuals, and cause a decrease
in bulk and increase in wing-power. The facts support.
this view, for the flying specimens of differentialis sent to
Prof. Thomas had, as he writes me, “the body lighter
and the wings longer, and some of that peculiar fierce ap-
pearance belonging to migrating specimens ;” and I have
specimens from Kansas and Minnesota which differ so
much in these respects from the more normal specimens as
found at St. Louis in ordinary seasons, that they can scarcely
be recognized as the same species. The casual observer
knows how thoroughly plants are modified in size and
habit by season and condition : the same holds true of in-
sects, and more particularly in certain groups.

Given that over the vast prairie region of Central Illi-

Locust Ravages Hast of the Mississippi. 201

nois, the insects were as thick as I found them in many
fields around St. Louis, where every step would cause two
or three hundred to rise ; and let this migratory instinct
be developed, and the mystery of the Illinois flights van-
ishes. They are exceptional local phenomena: they are
neither so strong nor so long sustained as those of the
Rocky Mountain species ; nor are they in any sense to be
so much dreaded.

In short, whenever the climate and conditions in the
Mississippi Valley approach those existing in the native
home of the Rocky Mountain Locust, some of our native
Species, and especially those nearest akin to it, also ap-
proach it in habit. If the climate of Illinois and Mis-
sourl were to permanently change in that direction, these
species would become permanently modified ; but as there
is no immediate danger of such a contingency, the Rocky
Mountain Locust is the only species, here considered, that
can properly lay claim to the migratory habit.

LOCUST FLIGHTS EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

To the unscientific mind there are few things more dif-
ficult of apprehension than that species, whether of plants
or animals, should be limited in geographical range to
areas not separated from the rest of the country by any
very marked barriers, or by visible demarcations. Yet such
is the fact, known to every naturalist ; and the geograph-
ical distribution of species forms at once one of the most
interesting and one of the most important studies in natural
history. Some species have a very limited, others a very
wide range ; and while in the course of time—in the lapse
of centuries or ages—the limits have altered in the past
and will alter in the future, they are, for all practical pur-
poses, permanent in present time. These limits may in
fact, for the purpose of illustration, be likened to those

202 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

which separate different nations. Though frequently
divided by purely imaginary lines, the nations of Europe,
with their peculiar customs and languages, are well defined.
Along the borders where two nations join, there is some-
times more or less commingling ; at other times the line
of demarkation is abrupt ; and in no case could emigrants
from the one, long perpetuate their peculiarities unchanged
in the midst of the other. Yet in the battle of nations,
the lines have changed, and the map of Europe has often
been remodeled. So it is with species. On the borders
of the areas not abruptly defined, to which species are
limited, there is more or less modification from the typical
characters and habits; while in the struggle of species
for supremacy, the limits may vary in the course of time.
The difference is, that the boundaries of nations result
from human rather than from natural agencies, while those
of species result chiefly from the latter, and are therefore
more permanent. These remarks apply of course to
species in a natural state, and where their range is unin- ©
fluenced either directly or indirectly by civilized man.

I found some difficulty, at the Conference of Governors
at Omaha to consider the locust problem, in satisfying
those present that the Rocky Mountain Locust could not
permanently thrive in the country indicated by green in
Plate I. of this work, and that there was no danger of its
ever extending so as to do serious damage east of a line
drawn a little west of the center of Iowa. They could
not see what there was to prevent the pest from overrun-
ning the whole country, and thought that Congress should
be appealed to, not only on behalf of the country that
has suffered from its ravages, but on behalf, also, of the
whole country that is threatened thereby.

Having already discussed the native home of the species,
and the conditions which prevent its permanent settlement

Locust Ravages Hast of the Mississippi. 203

in the country to which it is not native, it is unnecessary
here to go into detail on these points. Briefly, the species
is at home and can come to perfection only in the high
and dry regions of the Northwest, where the winters are
long and cold and the summers short ; and whenever it
migrates and oversweeps the country to the South or
Southeast, in which it is not indigenous, the changed con-
ditions are such that the first generation hatched out in
that (to it) unnatural climate, either forsakes it on the
wing or perishes from debility, disease and general deteri-
oration. On the soundness of this conclusion depends
the future welfare of most of the more fertile States be-
tween the Mississippi and the mountains, and science, as
well as past experience, shows it to be sound. Upon this
hypothesis the people of nearly the whole country, so
scourged during the past few years, may console them-
selves that the evil is but temporary : they may have
to fight their tiny foe most desperately for a short time,
but they nevertheless have the assurance that even if he
prove master of the field, he will vacate in time to, in
all probability, allow of good crops of some of the staples,
and that he may not return again for years. On the
other hypothesis—for which there is only apparent, and
no real reason—ruin stares them inevitably in the face.
The causes which limit the eastward flight of the winged
swarms that come from the Northwest are, with the ma-
jority of people, still more difficult to appreciate; for
most persons can see no reason why a swarm that over-
runs the western portions of Minnesota, lowa and Missouri,
should not extend to the eastern borders of the same
States, or into Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and eastward.
Having previously considered the more occult climatic
influences that bear on the belief that they never will, I
need only state here, that the principal arguments rest in

204 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

the facts that—Ist, the power of flight of any insect that

has a limited winged existence, must somewhere find a

limit ; 2d, that all past experience has shown that Calop-—
tenus spretus has never extended, in a general way, beyond

the limit indicated, and that as long as the present average

conditions of wind and climate and of timber-distribution

prevail, it is reasonable to suppose that it never will.

One of the principal difficulties in the way of a proper
apprehension of the facts, is found in the failure, in the
popular mind, to discriminate between species. The ordi-
nary newspaper writer talks of the grasshopper, or the
locust, as though all over the country and all over the
world there was but one and the same species. One of
the Governors present at the Conference referred to, was
at first fully of the belief that our Rocky Mountain pest
came all the way from Asia. In the case of this destruc-
tive species, even some entomologists have added to the
dificulty by erroneously claiming that it is common all
over the country to the Atlantic ocean.

The above thoughts were suggested by the following
reports, that met my eye, in the Cincinnati Gazette of the
24th of October, 1876, from Dayton and Hamilton, re-
spectively, in the State of Ohio:

The advent of Kansas grasshoppers, over Sunday and until
Monday evening, in great numbers throughout the city, is a most
remarkable incident. They were found early Sunday morning,
and left, as suddenly as they came, on Monday evening.

A shower of mammoth grasshoppers came down upon our town
and vicinity on Saturday night. We have never seen such large
ones before, and we understand from old citizens, that they are
entire strangers in this part of the country. We saw a boy havea
string tied to two of them (which were as long as a man’s finger)
trying to drive them, and he succeeded pretty well.

A flock of grasshoppers alighted in Hamilton about 11 o’clock
on Saturday night, from the northwest. Those that were not
drowned in the river or killed by the heavy rain, were probably
gobbled up before Sunday night by the chickens.

Locust Ravages East of the Mississippi. 205

Such reports as these very naturally confirm the unsci-
entific in the idea that the locust plague of the West, or
so-called “ Kansas grasshopper,” has overstepped the limits
entomology ascribes to it, and is upsetting the conclusions
which I have come to. The same swarm passed over
Oxford in the same State, in a southwesterly direction,
and fortunately that veteran and well-known apiarian, the
Rey. L. L. Langstroth, who has not forgotten to be a close
observer, had specimens sent to me. They proved to be
the American Acridium already figured and described on
page 101, (Fig. 15). It has a wide range, hibernates in
the winged condition, and not only differs in size and
habits from the Rocky Mountain Locust, but entomologi-
cally is as widely separated from it as a sheep is from a
cow. It is a species common over the country every year,
and during exceptional years becomes excessively numer-
ous and acquires the migratory habit, its wings being long
and well adapted to fiying. As I learn from Dr. 8. Miller,
of Franklin, it passed in swarms over part of Johnson
county, Missouri, late in September; and it was every-
where abundant in 1876.

The following extracts from letters of correspondents
refer to this species :

I send you by Mr. Shaw a small package containing specimens
of locusts, destructive about Chattanooga and in all Eastern Ten-
nessee. They strike me as nearly allied to the Rocky Mountain

Locust; fly with the same noise and shine of wings, in large shoals,
but are larger.—[ Dr. G. Engelmann, Warm Springs, N. C., Aug. 29,
1876.

We have a locust here which has in some places occurred in
‘considerable numbers, and some people think it the same as the
one which has produced so much damage in the West. This I
doubt, as it is evidently a native species.—[E. M. Pendleton, Prof.
of Agriculture, Univ. of Ga., Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 14, 1876.

The American Acridium visited us on the night of November
21, (Saturday.) A rain fell during the night. Cambridge City,
Indiana, was also visited by them on the same night.—[ Herschel I.
Fisher, Eastham College, Richmond, Ind.

206 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

Toward the end of July the unfledged insects did an
immense amount of damage to the cotton and other crops
of Georgia and South Carolina. The papers were full of
graphic accounts of their destruction, and not only did
editors very generally take for granted that they had to do
with the western spretus, but Mr. T. P. Janes, Commis-
sioner of Agriculture for Georgia, in his circular No. 27,
supposed they were the same. Specimens which he subse-
quently sent me, however, at once revealed their true
character.

The damage done by some of the more common locusts.
that occur over the country, is, let me repeat, sometimes
very great, especially during hot, dry years. In some of
the New England States their ravages have, in restricted
localities, fairly equaled those of the voracious spretus of
the West. But while a few of them, in exceptional circum-
stances, develop the migratory habit, they never have, and
in all probability never will, compare with Caloptenus
spretus in the vastness of its migrations and in its immense
power for injury over extensive areas. |

Whenever we hear of locust flights east of the Missis-
sippi, we may rest satisfied that they are not of our Rocky
Mountain pest, and are comparatively harmless.

q

CoE AG BBs eX:

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
NOMENCLATURE.

REGARDING the popular name of our insect, there is great
lack of uniformity in the terms by which it is designated,
and many of my readers, who have been accustomed to
hearing these insects very generally called ‘‘ grasshoppers,”
will doubtless wonder why I have not followed common
usage. In America, the term “Grasshopper” is very gen-
erally employed for these insects, but should be abandoned
for that of “ Locust,” which is applied to similar species in
nearly all other parts of the world, the “locusts” of Scrip-
ture being very closely allied species. As I have already
said (6th Mo. Ent. Rep., p. 153, note) :

It is to be regretted that American entomological writers do not
more strictly follow Harris in conforming to the English custom of
calling these insects—with short antenne and stridulating by means
of the stout hind legs—by the popular term of “locusts ;” this
being in keeping with ancient usage. The term ‘‘ grasshopper”
would then be confined to the long-horned and long-legged, green
group, stridulating solely with the wings, in which the species are
more solitary and never congregate in swarms, and in which the
female is invariably provided with a sword or cimiter-shaped ovi-
positor ; while the term Katydid could be used to designa'e the few
larger, tree-inhabiting speciesof the group, so designated by Harris.
Where the habit of calling the Cicada ‘‘ Locust,” and the ‘*‘ Locust”
of ancient usage ‘‘ Grasshopper,” is so inveterate as in this country,
it is not easy to change it; but it seems to me that the change is
desirable, and if popular authors would only continue the example
of Harris, the change would come about with the greater dissemi-
nation of entumological information.

Almost every entomological author has been under the

necessity, at one time or another, of insisting that the

“Grasshopper ” of this country is the ‘‘ Locust” of Europe .
(207)

208 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

and of antiquity ; or of endeavoring to clear up the con-
fusion which results from the popular application of this
last term to the Periodical Cicada or Harvest-fly—an
insect (Fig. 39) which dwells, in its early life, under
[Fig. 39] ground, and feeds by sucking the sap of
trees, and which is no more capable, like the
true locust, of devastating our grain fields
than a calf is of killing and devouring our
sheep. Yet the ceaseless preaching about
the popular misapplication of these terms
will avail nothing so long as the popular
error is encouraged by the preachers them-
selves adopting the misapplication. The
popular names of a country should be
respected as much as possible, especially for
Gee ae objects peculiar to the country, and I would
peers be the last to try and change them for
so as to show the trivial reasons;. but when, as in this instance,
beak and ovipos- : 5
itor. the name used for centuries in the older
countries, and become familiar as household words through
the widely disseminated Scriptures, is supplanted by a new
one, and transferred to an entirely different insect, there
is no excuse for perpetuating the popular error.

We may talk of shipping a car-load, and of the sun’s
rising, from now till doomsday; and, though, tothe intelli-
gent and hypercritical mind the expressions will ever savor
of incorrectness, no one is foolish enough to try and reform
them, because they are universal, wherever the English
language is spoken. Change in universal and long estab-
lished customs is neither possible, as a rule, nor advisable;
and it is doubtful if any reform could be brought about in
our present Gregorian calendar, for instance, even if the
advantage of regulating the divisions of the year by the
astronomical conditions of the earth’s orbit could be fully

Dh eit tl lia nce ne -

fran ety “8.

General Considerations. 209
established. But in a case like that of the use of the
terms Locust and GrassHopPER, the former, as applied to
our Rocky Mountain plague and its allies, has every claim
to favor, not only because of its having been longer used,
and of its now being more universally used than the latter;
but because it has a definite meaning and agrees with the
old systematic name of the family to which the species
belongs ; while the term “ grasshopper” is most loosely
applied to almost every field insect that hops. The term
locust 1s, in fact, supposed by many to be derived from the
Latin words locus ustus, signifying a burnt place, and refer-
ring to the desolation, as if by fire, which these insects
cause.

The trivial terms “Colorado,” ‘‘ Red-legged,” and “‘ Hate-
ful” have been applied to the species by various writers;
but the name “ Rocky Mountain Locust,” which I have
employed, is expressive of the insect’s habitat and least
open to objection.

Regarding the scientific name of our insect, it is only
necessary to add, in addition to what has already been said,
that it belongs to the modern genus Melanoplus of Stil;
but just as this author’s subdivisions of certain genera in
Coleoptera are not accepted or recognized by many of our
best coleopterists, so Melanoplus is not considered as of
generic value by some of our best orthopterists ; for which
reason I have used the better known and well established
genus Caloptenus. The specific name spretus (meaning
despised) indicates that, as a species, it was long over-
looked by entomologists, and confounded with femur-
rubrum.

PRAIRIE FIRES VS. LOCUST RAVAGKS.

The statement has been made, and advocated with con-

siderable ingenuity, that the visitations of the Rocky
14 :

210 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

Mountain Locust are due to the practice of burning off
the dry grass of our Western prairies. All the arguments
in this direction, however plausible at first sight, will not.
bear the test of close scrutiny. The theory is that burning
the grass is the occasion of drouth, and that locusts come
only in drouthy seasons. One writer in the Kansas Farmer
for Sept. 23d, 1874, even asserts that ‘‘ the unbroken
succession of curses” that have afflicted that State, ‘all
spring from the one first grand cause, the burning of the
prairie grasses,” and, after explaining that hot, scorching
winds and simoons originate in desert countries, he avers
that “‘it matters not whether the country is an original
desert, or whether it is made so by the action of our
Western prairie fires. For all present purposes the two
are reduced to a common level and produce a common
result—drouth, hot winds and locusts.”

The reason given why the locusts can come only in
drouthy seasons, is, that they can not fly in a moist
atmosphere, and the facts that they do not readily fly
early in the morning, and that the farther east you go, or,
in other words, the more moist the atmosphere becomes,
the insects diminish in number and consequent power for
harm.

As such views are by no means uncommon in the West,
I will give my several reasons for believing that there is
no connection whatever between prairie fires and locust
ravages. .

1. It is by no means proved that the simoons which
occasionally sweep over our Western States and Territories
have their origin in any part of that vast prairie country.
Some of the more local of these hot, dry winds may origi-
nate or acquire their peculiarly high temperature on the
mauvaises terres of Wyoming or the table lands of Arizona
and Mexico; but the more general simoons most probably

General Considerations. 211

have their origin at a far greater distance from us, viz., in
the tropics. These simoons in Missouri always blow from
the southwest, in Kansas from south-southwest, and in
Eastern Colorado south, or a few points east of south;
and their injurious and scorching effects are not infre-
quently felt before the frost in Kansas and the country to
the west is fairly out of the ground.

2. Itis well known that the buffalo grass ranges over a
vast extent of our Western plains, and that it does not
furnish a very dense or thorough covering, even when
unburned, and assists very little in retaining moisture or
preventing evaporation.

3. My own observations for the past seventeen years in
this Western prairie country lead me to the conclusion
that fires more often succeed than precede drouth, and that
they may more justly be looked upon as a result than as a
cause of excessive dry weather; and the prevailing belief
that large conflagrations or extensive fires are conducive
to rain, bears on this point.

4. Whenever grass is burned during the growing
season, the old and drier blade is soon succeeded by a green
and succulent one, which has far greater power to attract
and retain moisture; while if burned in winter time the
evaporation from the soil can be thereby but slightly
affected, because of the weakened power of the sun, and
the snows which usually cover and protect.

5. Drouths are by no means confined to that portion of
the country subject to the locust invasions.

6. The reason why locusts are more sluggish and less
inclined to fly at morn than at noon is not so much a ques-
tion of the comparative density of the atmosphere as of
the difference in temperature. All diurnal insects are
sluggish in the cool of the morning, and their activity
increases with the rising of the thermometer; and flight,

212 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

whether of bird or insect, is, I conceive, easier, ceteris
paribus, in a dense than in an attenuated atmosphere.

7. As the Rocky Mountain Locust multiplies continu-
ously in the Rocky Mountain region, its descent into the
plains to the east where it can not permanently thrive,
can not well be affected by the burning of the grass on those
plains.

From what has preceded I think we may safely conclude
that the non-burning of the prairies will have no effect in
preventing locust injuries, but that, on the contrary, as
shown in Chapter VIII, the judicious burning of such
prairies at the proper time is most beneficial and highly to
be commended.

Indeed, there is only one way in which there can be any
real connection between the burning of prairies and the
ravages of the Rocky Mountain Locust, and that connec-
tion is through the remote past, and altogether beyond our
present control. In the report of the Chief Signal Officer
to the War Department for 1872, will be found an inter-
esting account of the great fires of 1871 in the North-
west, in which the late Prof. J. A. Lapham, of Milwaukee,
Wis., maintains that our extensive Western prairies and
plains owe their existence and origin to the agency of fire.
These fires, encouraged by drouth, and either kindled by
accident or intention, have swept over the country for
ages, and while they leave the roots of the grass uninjured,
they destroy the germs of most other plants, including
forest trees; and Mr. Lapham pictures to himself a long-
past struggle between forest and prairie, in which the
latter, by the assistance of the Fire King, has gained and
held the vantage ground.

While I do not agree with Prot. Lapham that the
remote cause of our prairies can be attributed to fire, yet
no one can doubt its agency at the present time in main-

General Considerations. Pile

taining these prairies and preventing timber growth in
the more humid portions of the great prairie region.
But on Prof. Lapham’s hypothesis there would naturaily
be a connection in the past between fires and locusts; for
if without fires this whole prairie region had been tim-
bered, the locusts, which are essentially insects of the
plains and prairies, could never have become so prodig-
iously abundant and injurious. On such a hypothesis alone
can I see any possible connection between prairie fires and
locust invasions, and, however much truth there may be in
the hypothesis, the fact remains that there is no present
connection between the two phenomena.

FASTING AND PRAYER.

During great calamities, there has always been, and per-
haps always will be, on the part of people of any religion
whatsoever, a tendency to prayer and supplication, that
Divine aid may come to the relief of the afflicted. This ten-
dency is at no time more manifest than during locust visita-
tions. It was illustrated in the passage of a resolution at the
Omaha Conference, in 1876, praying the Supreme Being
to avert future injury, and it has found expression in reso-
lutions by religious sects and proclamations by State repre-
sentatives, who doubtless receive from their constituency,
during times of locust trouble, numerous petitions asking
for such action.

The general interest awakened in the various endeavors
to aid the sufferers in Missouri, in 1875, was in no small
degree due to the active sympathy and the prompt attention
given to the subject by Governor C. H. Hardin. About
the middle of May he issued the following proclamation :

Whereas, owing to the failures and losses of crops, much suffer-

ing has been endured by many of our people during the past few
months, and similar calamities are impending upon larger commu-

214 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

nities, and may possibly extend to the whole State, and if not abated
will eventuate in sore distress and famine ;

Wherefore, be it known that the 3d day of June proximo is here-
by appointed and set apart as a day of fasting and prayer, that
Almighty God may be invoked to remove from our. midst those
impending calamities, and to grant instead the blessings of abun-
dance and plenty; and the people and all the officers of the State
are hereby requested to desist, during that day, from their usual
employments, and to assemble at their places of worship for humble
and devout prayer, and to otherwise observe the day as one of fast-
ing and prayer.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused
the great seal of the State of Missouri to be affixed, in the city of
Jefferson, this 17th day of May, 1875. .

C. H. HARDIN.

By the Governor :
M. K. McGratu, Secretary of State.

This proclamation naturally drew forth a large amount
of comment, and the Governor was ridiculed or praised
according as fancy inspired newspaper men. As I was
myself taken to task by.no less a personage than the Rey-
erend Doctor W. Pope Yeaman, of the Third Baptist
Church of St. Louis, for supposed ridicule, and for taking
“ unnecessary pains to sneer at Providence,” it may be as.
well to state that the only sentiment I ever expressed,
either by word of mouth or by pen, as to the proclama-
tion, is contained in an article published in the St. Louis
Globe of May 19, 1875, where I wrote :

I deeply and sincerely appreciate the sympathy which our wor-
thy Governor manifests for the suffering people of our western
counties, through the proclamation which sets apart the 3d of June
as a day of fasting and prayer that the great Author of our being
may be invoked to remove impending calamities. Yet, without
discussing the question as to the efficacy of prayer in affecting the ~
physical world, no one will for a moment doubt that the supplica-
tions of the people will more surely be granted if accompanied by
well-directed, energetic work. When, in 1853, Lord Palmerston
was besought by the Scotch Presbyterians to appoint a day for
national fasting, humiliation and prayer, that the cholera might be
averted, he suggested that it would be more beneficial to feed the
poor, cleanse the cesspools, ventilate the houses and remove the
causes and sources of contagion, which, if allowed to remain, will
infallibly breed pestilence, ‘‘ in spite of all the prayers and fastings

General Considerations. 915

7

of a united but inactive nation.” We are commanded by the best
authority to prove our faith by our work. For my part, I would
like to see the prayers of the people take on the substantial form of
collections, made in the churches throughout the State, for the
benefit of the sufferers, and distributed by organized authority ; or,
what would be still better, the State authorities, if it is in their
power, should offer a premium for every bushel of young locusts
destroyed. In this way the more destitute of the people in the
infested districts would havea strong incentive to destroy the young
locusts, and thus avert future injury, and at the same time furnish
the means of earning a living unti] the danger is past. The locusts
thus collected and destroyed could be fed to poultry and hogs,
buried as manure, or dried, pulverized and sold for the same
purpose. :

Though I may not have overmuch piety and faith my-
self, I at least know how to respect those qualities in
others, and however much I believe that the insect: which
was the remote cause of Dr. Yeaman’s sermon, is governed
by natural laws, which should guide us in understanding
and.overcoming it, the reverend gentleman forgot his call-
ing, and made himself ridiculous, in charging, for such
reasons, that I took pains to “ sneer at Providence.”

As the most effective and substartial method of observ-
ing the day of fasting and prayer, and as a result of the
suggestion above quoted, Gov. Hardin, on the 24th of May,
wisely issued a second proclamation, urging the benevo-
lent and charitable, who might assemble on the 3d of June
in public worship, and felt so disposed, to make contribu-
tions and forward the same to certain parties who would
attend to the proper disbursement of the same.

Early in April, I favored the Governor with the very
first copy that came from the bi.dery, of my Seventh Re-
port, in which it was foretold that the locusts would begin
to leave the State earlyin June. Whether or not this had
anything to do with the date fixed upon in the proclama-
tion, certain it is that the date was most opportune ; for
the insects began to leave about that time, and that por-
tion of the community which places faith in the efficacy

216 The Rocky Mowntain Locust.

of prayer doubtless had their faith greatly strengthened

by the fact.
NOT A DIVINE VISITATION.

There are those, among both the clergy and the laity, who
deem a locust visitation an expression of Divine wrath, for
the sin and corruption of the people—a chastisement of the
Lord. They claim that the “wickedness, fraud, falsehood
and corruption” which, as they assert, “abound in every
department of society,” are at the bottom of it. They
consider it impious to attempt to avert the evil. These
opinions were boldly proclaimed in 1875 by writers in some
of our prominent newspapers. The expression of such
opinions is a downright insult to the hard-working, indus-
trious and suffering farmers of the Western country, who
certainly deserve no more to be thus visited by Divine
wrath than the people of other parts of the State ‘and
country. Persons who promulgate such views are little
removed in intelligence from the poor crack-brained negress
whom I.saw in the streets of Warrensburg shouting and
imploring the people not to kill a locust, since God Almighty
had sent them ; or from the poor deluded Arabs who make
no effort to destroy the locusts which they hold in super-
stitious reverence. It is not surprising that people are yet
found who hold such views; for no great calamity ever befell
a country which was not attributed, by certain fanatics, to
Divine wrath; but it is surprising that, in this enlightened
day, such persons can find circulation for their vagaries in
the columns of some of our widely circulating and influ-
ential journals,

INFLUENCE OF THE WIND IN DETERMINING THE COURSE OF
LOCUST SWARMS.

That excessive multiplication aud hunger are the prin-
cipal causes of migration from the native home of the

General Considerations. OT

species, and that the prevailing winds determine the course
therefrom, I have endeavored to show in Chapter II. That
all these influences very largely determine the return
migration when the insects hatch out in the Mississippi
Valley is also doubtless true ; and it is interesting to note
in this connection that, according to observations, covering
a period of from two to five years, furnished by General
Myer, at the request of Dr. A. 8. Packard, Jr.,* the pre-
vailing winds in May and June, within the region subject
to invasion, are from the Gulf of Mexico, or from the south-
east and south, 7. ¢., in exactly the opposite direction from
which they blow later in the season. Yet, to assume that the
migrations are solely dependent for direction on the winds
would be incorrect, as there is cumulative evidence that
when once the migration has commenced, adverse winds
only retard, but do not materially change its course. I
have known the insects in their course northwestwardly to
remain on the ground for five consecutive days, the while
the wind was opposing them, and then to rise and pass on
as soon as it died away or blew again from the south.

LOCUSTS AS FOOD FOR MAN.

Our relish or disrelish of certain animals for food are
very much matters of habit, or fashion; for we esteem
many things to-day which our forefathers considered either
poisonous or repulsive. There is nothing very attractive
about such cold-blooded animals as turtles, frogs, oysters,
clams, crabs, lobsters, prawns, periwinkles, snails, shrimps,
mussels, quahaugs or scallops, until we have become accus-
tomed to them; and what is there about a dish of locusts,
well served up, more repulsive than about a lot of shrimps?
for the former feed on green vegetation and are more

** The Destructive Locust of the West,” Am. Naturalist, Vol. XI, p. 27.

218 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

a

cleanly than either pigs or chickens. Who can doubt but
that the French during the late investment of Paris would
have looked upon a swarm of these locusts as a manna-like
blessing from heaven, and would have much preferred them
to stewed rat? And why should the people of the West,
when rendered destitute and foodless by these insects, not
make the best of the circumstances, and guard against fam-
ine by utilizing them as food? Having, in 1875, personally
tested them for this purpose, I will here record the result
very much as originally given to the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, at its meeting for that
year.

In the few words I have to communicate under this head,
it is not my purpose to inflict a long dissertation on edible
insects. The subject has been sufficiently treated of by
various authors, and especially by Kirby and Spence in
their admirable Introduction to Entomology ; while Mr.
W. R. Gerard has brought together most of the facts in a
paper entitled “ Entomophagy,” read before the Pough-
keepsie Society of Natural History. It is my desire,
rather, to demonstrate the availability of locusts as food
for man, and their value, as such, whenever, as not infre-
quently happens, they deprive him of all other sources of
nourishment.

With the exception of locusts, most other insects that
have been used as food for man, are obtained in small
quantities, and their use is more a matter of curiosity than
of interest. They have been employed either by excep-
tional individuals with perverted tastes, or else as dainty
tit-bits to tickle some abnormal and epicurean palate. Not
so with locusts, which have, from time immemorial, formed
a staple article of diet with many peoples, and are used
to-day in large quantities in many parts of the globe.

Any one at all familiar with the treasures on exhibition

General Considerations. 219:

?

at the British Museum, must have noticed among its
Nineveh sculptures, one in which are represented men
carrying different kinds of meat to some festival, and
among them some who carry long sticks to which are tied
locusts—thus indicating that in those early days, repre-
sented by the sculpture, locusts were sufficiently esteemed
to make part of a public feast. They are counted among
the ‘clean meats” in Leviticus (xi, 22), and are referred
to in other parts of the Bible, as food for man. In most
parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, subject to locust ravages,
these insects have been, and are yet, extensively used as
food. Herodotus mentions a tribe of Atthiopians ‘‘ which
fed on locusts which came in swarms from the southern
and unknown districts,” and Livingstone has made us
familiar with the fact that the locust-feeding custom pre-
vails among many African tribes. Indeed, some tribes.
have been called Acridophagi, from the almost exclusive
preference they give to this diet. We have it from Pliny
that locusts were in high esteem among the Parthians, and
the records of their use in ancient times, as food, in South-
ern Europe and Asia, are abundant. This use continues
in those parts of the world to the present day.

In Morocco (as I am informed by Mr. Trovey Blackmore,
of London, who has spent some time in that country) they
do more or less damage every year, and are used exten-
sively for food whenever they so abound as to diminish the
ordinary food-supply ; while they are habitually roasted
for eating and brought into Tangier and other towns by
the country people and sold in the market places and on
the streets. The Jews, who form a large proportion of
the population, collect the females only for this purpose—
having an idea that the male is unclean, but that under
the body of the female there are some Hebrew characters
which make them lawful food. In reality there are, under

220 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

the thorax, certain dark markings—the species used being
the <Acridium perigrinum, which is so injurious to
crops. Radoszkowski, President of the Russian Ento-
mological Society, tells me that they are also, to this day,
extensively used as food in Southern Russia ; while many
of our North American Indian tribes, and notably the
_ Snake and Digger Indians of California, are known to
feed upon them. No further evidence need be cited to
prove the present extensive use of these insects as articles
of food. Let us then briefly consider the nature of this
locust food, and the different methods of preparing it.
The records show us that in ancient times these insects
were cooked in a variety of ways. Cdipoda migratoria
and Acridium perigrinum, which are the more common
devastating locusts of the ‘‘ Old World,” are both of large
size, and they are generally prepared by first detaching the
legs and wings. The bodies are then boiled, roasted, stewed,
fried or broiled. The Romans are said to have used them >
by carefully roasting them to a bright golden yellow. At
the present day, in most parts of Africa, and especially in
Russia, they are either salted or smoked like red herrings.
Chenier, in his account of the Empire of Morocco (Lon-
don, 1788), says that thus cured, they are brought into the
market in prodigious quantities, but that they have “an
oily and rancid taste, which habit only can render agree-
able.” The Moors use them, to the present day, in the
manner described by Jackson in his ‘‘ Travels in Morocco,”
viz., by first boiling and then frying them ; but the Jews,
in that country—more provident than the Moors—salt
them and keep them for using with the dish called Dajina,
which forms the Saturday’s dinner of the Jewish popula-
tion. The dish is made by placing meat, fish, eggs, toma-
toes—in fact, almost anything edible—in a jar, which is
placed in the oven on Friday night, and taken out hot on

General Considerations. Dip A

the Sabbath, so that the people get a hot meal without the
sin of lighting a fire on that day. In the Abbé Godard’s
“* Description et Histoire de Maroc” (Paris, 1860), he tells
us that ‘‘ they are placed in bags, salted, and either baked
or boiled. They are then dried on the terraced roofs of
the houses. Fried in oil they are not bad.” Some of our
Indians collect locusts by lighting fires in the direct path
of the devouring swarms. In roasting, the wings and legs
crisp up and are separated ; the bodies are then eaten fresh
or dried in hot ashes and put away for future use. Our
Digger Indians roast them, and grind or pound them to a
kind of flour, which they mix with pounded acorns, or
with different kinds of berries, make into cakes and dry in
the sun for future use.

The species employed by the ancients were doubtless the
same as those employed at the present day in the East,
viz., the two already mentioned, and, to a less degree, the
smaller Caloptenus Italicus. We have no records of any
extended use of ourown Rocky Mountain species (Ca/op-
tenus spretus), unless—which is not improbable — the
species employed by the Indians on the Pacific coast
should prove to be the same, or a geographical race of the
same.

It had long been a desire with me to test the value of
this species (spretus) as food, and I did not lose the oppor-
tunity to gratify that desire, which the recent locust inva-
sions into some of the Mississippi Valley States offered. I
knew well enough that the attempt would provoke to ridi-
cule and mirth, or even disgust, the vast majority of our
people, unaccustomed to anything of the sort, and associ-
ating with the word insect or ‘‘ bug” everything horrid
and repulsive. Yet I was governed by weightier reasons
than mere curiosity ; for many a family in Kansas and
Nebraska was in 1874 brought to the brink of the grave by

222 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

sheer lack of food, while the St. Louis papers reported
cases of actual death from starvation in some sections of
Missouri, where the insects abounded and ate up every
green thing in the spring of 1875.

Whenever the occasion presented, I partook of locusts
prepared in different ways, and, one day, ate of no other
kind of food, and must have consumed, in one way and
another, the substance of several thousand half-grown
locusts. Commencing the experiments with some misgiv-
ings, and fully expecting to have to overcome disagreeable
flavor, I was soon most agreeably surprised to find that the
insects were quite palatable, in whatever way prepared.
The flavor of the raw locust is most strong and disagree-
able, but that of the cooked insects is agreeable, and sufi-
ciently mild to be easily neutralized by anything with
which they may be mixed, and to admit of easy disguise,
according to taste or fancy. But the great point I would
make in their favor is, that they need no elaborate prep-
aration or seasoning, and that they really require no dis-
guise, and herein lies their value in exceptional emergen-
cies ; for when people are driven to the point of starvation
by these ravenous pests, it follows that all other food is
either very scarce or unattainable. A broth, made by
boiling the unfledged Caloptent for two hours in the proper
quantity of water, and seasoned with nothing in the world
but pepper and salt, is quite palatable, and can scarcely be
distinguished from beef broth, though it hasa slight flavor
peculiar to it, and not easily described. The addition of a
little butter improves it, and the flavor can, of course, be
modified with mint, sage and other spices, ad libitum.
Fried or roasted in nothing but their own oil, with the
addition of a little salt, and they are by no means unpleas-
ant eating, and have quite a nutty flavor. In fact, it isa
flavor, like most peculiar and not unpleasant flavors, that

General Considerations. Doe

one can soon learn to get fond of. Prepared in this man-
ner, ground and compressed, they would doubtless keep
for along time. Yet their consumption in large quanti-
ties in this form would not, I think, prove as wholesome as
- when made into soup or broth ; for I found the chitinous
covering and the corneous parts—especially the spines on
the tibie—dry and chippy, and somewhat irritating to the
throat. This objection would not apply with the same
force to the mature individuals, especially of larger spe-
cies, where the heads, legs and wings are carefully separ-
ated before cooking ; and, in fact, some of the mature
insects prepared in this way, then boiled and afterward
stewed with a few vegetables and a little butter, pepper,
salt and vinegar, made an excellent fricassee.

Lest it be presumed that these opinions result from an
unnatural palate, or from mere individual taste, let me add
that I took pains to get the opinions of many other persons.
Indeed, I shall not soon forget the experience of my first culi-
nary effort in this line—so fraught with fun and so forcibly
illustrating the power of example in overcoming prejudice.
This attempt was made at a hotel. At first it was impos-
sible to get any assistance from the followers of the ars
coquinaria. They could not more flatly have refused to
touch, taste or handle, had it been a question of cooking
vipers. Nor love nor money could induce them to do
anything, and in this respect the folks of the kitchen were
all alike, without distinction of color. There was no other
resource but to turn cook myself, and, operations once
commenced, the interest and aid of a brother naturalist
and two intelligent ladies were soon enlisted. It was most
amusing to note how, as the rather savory and pleasant odor
went up from the cooking dishes, the expression of horror
and disgust gradually vanished from the faces of the curi-
ous lookers on, and how, at last, the head cook—a stout

224 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

eee FSS

and jolly negress—took part in the operations ; how, when
the different dishes were neatly served upon the table and
were freely partaken of with evident relish and many
expressions of surprise and satisfaction by the ladies and
gentlemen interested, this same cook was actually induced ~
to try them and soon grew eloquent in their favor ; how,
finally, a prominent banker, as also one of the editors of
the town, joined in the meal. The soup soon vanished,
and banished silly prejudice; then cakes with batter
enough to hold the locusts together disappeared, and were
pronounced good; then baked locusts with or without
condiments; and when the meal was completed with
dessert of baked locusts and honey @ Ja John the Baptist,
the opinion was unanimous that that distinguished prophet
no longer deserved our sympathy, and that he had not
fared badly on his diet in the wilderness. Prof. H. H.
Straight, at the time connected with the Warrensburg
(Mo.) Normal School, who made some experiments for me
in this line, wrote: ‘“ We boiled them rather slowly for
three or four hours, seasoned the fluid with a little butter,
salt and pepper, and it made an excellent soup, actually;
would like to have it even in prosperous times.” Mrs.
Johonnot, who was at the time an invalid, and Prof.
Johonnot, the then Principal of the school, pronounced it
excellent.

I sent a bushel of the scalded insects to Mr. Jno. Bonnet,
one of the oldest and best known caterers of St. Louis.
Master of the mysteries of the cuisine, he made a soup
which was really delicious, and was so pronounced by
dozens of prominent St. Louisans who tried it. Shaw, in
his Travels in Barbary (Oxford, England, 1738), in which
two pages are devoted to a description of the ravages of
locusts, mentions that they are sprinkled with salt and
fried, when they taste like crawfish; and Mr. Bonnet

General Considerations. 995

declared that this locust soup reminded him of nothing so
much as crawfish bisque, which is so highly esteemed by
connoisseurs. He also declared that he would gladly have
it on his bill of fare every day if he could get the insects.
His method of preparation was to boil on a brisk fire,
having previously seasoned them with salt, pepper and
grated nutmeg, the whole being occasionally stirred.
When cooked they are pounded in a mortar with bread
fried brown, or a puree of rice. They are then replaced
in the saucepan and thickened to a broth by placing on a
warm part of the stove, but not allowed to boil. For
use, the broth is passed through a strainer and a few
croutons are added. I carried a small box of fried ones
with me to Europe, and they were tasted by numerous
persons, inclua ng the members of the London Entomo-
logical Society and of the Société Hntomologique de
France. Without exception they were pronounced far
better than was expected, and those fried in their own oil
with a little salt remained good ‘and fresh for several
months; others fried in butter became slightly rancid—a
fault of the butter. Mr. C. Horne, F. Z. S., writing to
Science Gossip about swarms of locusts which visited parts
of India in 1863, says: ‘In the evening I had asked two
gentlemen to dinner and gave them a curry and croquette
of locusts. They passed for Cabul shrimps, which in flavor
they very much resembled, but the cook having inadvert-
ently left a hind leg in a croquette, they were found out, to
the infinite disgust of one of the party and the amusement
of the other.” |

This testimony as to the past and present use of locusts
as human food might be multiplied almost indefinitely, and
I hope I have said enough to prove that the nature of that
food is by no means disagreeable. In short, not to waste

time in further details, I can safely assert, from my own
15

226 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

personal experience, that our Rocky Mountain locust is more
palatable when cooked than some animals that we already
use upon our tables. I mention the species more particu-
larly, because the flavor will doubtless differ according to:
the species or even according to the nature of the vege-
tation the insects were nourished on. I have made no
chemical analysis of this locust food, but that it is highly
nourishing may be gathered from the fact that all animals
fed upon the insects thrive when these are abundant ; and
the further fact that our locust-eating Indians, and all
other locust-eating people, grow fat upon them.

Locusts will hardly come into general use for food except.
where they are annually abundant, and our western farmers
who occasionally suffer trom them will not easily be brought.
to a due appreciation of them for this purpose. Prejudiced
against them, fighting to overcome them, killing them in
large quantities, until the stench from their decomposing
bodies becomes at times most offensive—they find little
that is attractive in the pests. For these reasons, as lone
as other food is attainable, the locust will be apt to be
rejected by most persons. Yet the fact remains that they
do make very good food. When freshly caught in large
quantities, the mangled mass presents a not very appetiz-
ing appearance, and emits a rather strong and not over
pleasant odor; but rinsed and scalded, they turn a brownish
red, look much more inviting, and give no disagreeable
smell.

The experiments here recorded have given rise to many
sensational newspaper paragraphs, and I consider the mat-
ter of sufficient importance to place the actual facts on
permanent record. |

Like or dislike of many kinds of food is, let me repeat,
very much « matter of individual taste or national custom.
Every nation has some special and favorite dish which the

General Considerations. 227

people of other nations will scarcely touch, while the very
animal that is highly esteemed in one part of the country
is not infrequently rejected in another section as poisonous.
Prejudice wields a most powerful influence in all our
actions. It is said that the Irish during the famine of
1857, would rather starve than eat our corn bread, but on
the other hand, as we have already seen (ante, p. 35), the
Mormons in 1855, from necessity, really subsisted on a
locust diet ; and if what I have here written shall, in the
future, induce some of our Western people to profit by the
hint, and avoid suffering or actual starvation, I shall not
jhave written in vain. |

UNNECESSARY ALARM CAUSED BY COMPARATIVELY HARM-
LESS SPECIES.

The sense of apprehension of
further danger is great in a
community that has suffered
severely from any disaster what-
soever, and locusts which under
ordinary circumstances would
attract no attention are quite
frequently looked upon with
alarm and suspicion during years
of visitation by spretus. Mr.
HH. W. Kruze, of Sedalia, Mo..,
sent me, in 1875, a very large,
short- winged locust found in his
locality, with an inquiry as to
its uame, and whether there
was any connection between its
appearance and the late in-
vasion of spretus. The same
species was also sent me from
the same locality by Mr. Geo.

THE CLUMSY LOCUST.

228 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

Husmann. It is the Brachypeplus magnus of entomolo-
gists, and may be popularly called the Clumsy Locust.
It is one of our largest and clumsiest species, incapable
of flight, and never doing serious injury. It is common
on the plains of Western Kansas and Colorado, but was
never before reported from Missouri. It is prettily
marked, as in Fig. 40, and occurs in two distinet varieties,
one in which a bright yellowish-green prevails, and the
other in which fleshy tints, and pale-brown predominate.
There can be no connection between its appearance and
that of spretus, other than that the exodus of this last.
rendered more conspicuous all large insects of this kind
that were left behind. .

Reports are often circulated and published during
winter that “the grasshoppers have appeared,” by which
is meant that the dreaded spretus is about. The follow-
ing letter from Dr. B. F. Dunkley, of Dunksburg,
Pettis county, Mo., received in the winter of 1875-6, will
show how easily people are misled :

Inclosed please find some young locusts, just hatched out. We
believe them to be the Rocky Mountain Locusts, but send them to
you to decide. Please answer. In my report, in answer to your

circular, I said that some of the locusts that hatched out late -

and only grew to half the size of others that migrated and left us
last July, did lay their eggs, for myself and others saw them at it.
Now I think these are from the eggs laid by them. If so, will the
co.d, when it comes, kill them ?

All opinions like those expressed by Mr. Dunkley are
based on “mistaken identity.” The species noticed hop-
ping about, during the mild weather of January and
February, are native species that are with us all the time,
and habitually hibernate in the half-grown, unfledged con-
dition. The most common of them, and that sent by Mr.
Dunkley and other correspondents, is the Green-striped
Locust (Zragocephala viridifasciata,) a very common

|

General Considerations. 229

species, ranging from Maine to Florida, and from the
Atlantic to Nebraska. It passes the winter in the imma-
ture condition, sheltering in meadows and in tufts of
grass, and becoming active whenever the weather is mild.
_ It is sometimes found in winter in the early larva stages,
but more often in the pupa state, and becomes fledged
toward the end of April.

It differs generically from the Rocky Mountain Locust,
which hibernates in the egg state. This Green-striped
Locust, as its name implies, has, when mature, a broad
green stripe on the front wings, and by its narrower,

GREEN-STRIPED Locust: —@, larva; b, perfect insect.

humped and keeled thorax or fore-body (Fig. 41), may
at once be distinguished from the dreaded Rocky Moun-
tain pest. Like so many other species of its family it
occurs in two well marked varieties, one in which, in
addition to the stripe on the front wings, the whole body
and hind thighs, above, are pea-green; the other in which
this color gives way to pale-brown. In both varieties the
hind wings are smoky, with the basal third greenish.

The species noticed by Mr. Dunkley to hatch out late
and to lay eggs in the fall, was more probably femur-
rubrum than spretus.

The species of the genus Zettiz also hibernate in the
half-grown and sometimes in the full-grown condition,
and are frequently supposed to be the young of spretus.
These insects are very active, and are at once distinguished
by the small head, great breadth across the middle of the

230 The Rocky Mountain Locust.

prothorax which extends to a tapering point to or beyond
the tip of the abdomen; by the front of the breast forming
a projection like a stock-cravat into which to receive the
lower part of the head, and by the short, rudimentary,
scale-like front wings. They fly with a buzzing noise like
a flesh-fly. Our most common species (Tettix granulata,
Scudder, Fig. 42,) may be called the Granulated Grouse-
Locust. Like the other species, it is very variable in color
[Fig. 422] and ornamentation, the prevailing hue being
f dark-brown beneath and paler above. A well-
marked variety has a small, pale spot on the
rudimentary front wings, and a larger conspic-
|“ uous one on top of the hind thighs. The species
of the genus Stenobothrus also hibernate partly
' grown, and are mistaken for spretus.
Graxvtat- Even insects belonging to a different order are
Locust. not infrequently the cause of unnecessary alarm.
In the spring of 1875 the meadows were reported as being
destroyed around Champaign and Jacksonville, Illinois, by
what was supposed to be the young of spretus ; but speci-
mens of these supposed locusts, sent me by Chapin & Sim-
mons, of the Jacksonville Journal, proved to be little Jas-
soid leaf-hoppers allied to the common grape-leaf hoppers
—insects belonging to a different order (Hemiptera) from
that which includes the locusts (Orthoptera.) They were
indeed grass-hoppers, in the sense of hopping about among
the grass, but they were not the so-called grasshoppers
(locusts) that at the time were proving such a plague in
parts of Kansas and Missouri.

PROSPECTIVE INJURY.

It is of course impossible to predicate with assurance
injury or non-injury from the fall swarms. There were no
locusts to do harm in Manitoba in 1876, and it would

General Considerations. 931

seem that the Saskatchawan country must have been more
or less depleted by the swarms which overspread the coun-
try to the southeast last fall. I am inclined to hope and
believe that there will not be another general invasion
next autumn, and that the people of Texas, Indian Ter-
ritory, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa,
Southern Dakota and even Minnesota, may expect
immunity for a few years to come, after the hosts which
hatched this spring are destroyed, or wing themselves
away. There may be partial injury from their progeny in
1878, or even 1879, in parts of the country named, espe-
cially toward the Northwest, but there will, I think, be no
general destruction.

That in the future the States just enumerated will be
again visited from time to time, there can be no manner
of doubt, unless the Commission now investigating the
subject discover some means of preventing the migrations
of the pest from its native breeding-grounds. But the
injury will decrease in proportion as the population in-
creases—as knowledge and experience with the insect are
acquired and retained—and as the Signal Service is able to
forewarn the farmer of approaching swarms. It is my
earnest hope that this little treatise, which I now close,
will, in serving as a record of the past, if in nothing else,
prove valuable to the farmers of the West, by helping them
to successfully withstand any future visitation of Calopte-
nus spretus.

ERRATA

Page 44, last line, for ‘‘;*’ read ‘- and.”

PaGE 92. AsTlearn from Prof. Asa Gray, the Amarantus here referred to as
Blitum, and hitherto so considered by botanists, is, according to Mr. Watson,
anew species. It is common in the Rocky Mountain regions, and has cer-
tainly spread from the West ; whereas the Blitwm, introduced fiom Europe,

has doubtless spread from the East.
PaGE 112, line 7, after ‘‘ Sphinx,” add ‘‘ (Deilephila lineata).”

INDEX.

A
Air, effects of exposure to, on eggs
OM SPPCUUS 28> 2-2 = Hee 2- = Sei 2 ~- 148
- Acridium Americanum ..---------- 101
i “flight of, mis-
taken for sprevius. -..-..---------- 31
Acridium perigrinum ..----------- 205
Amarantus Blitum.....-------- 92, 110
American Acridium ....-.-..------ 101
Anon. USC Ol .-----~=--5=- Ae es 2 rus
Amblychila cylindriformis -..----- 127
Anovymous Tachina-fly--_-.-- ae i381
Anthomyia Egg Parasite...--.----- 118
Anthomyia radicum..-..----------- 118
oS var. calopteni, 118
se ORUSSUCE eee esse ese 121
us COP URUTR Wesaiccane 22a 121
$s PRONE eee eee 121
Apo0cynum..----------------------- 92
Aristida oligostachia -.--.------ ee 110
ASQ DUOS anas seca tees eae ssas See=se 92
Astoma gryllaria ......----------- 128
in panasiticum 2.22 o2cie2t-. 2 180
Atlantic Locust--.--.------ Spat ores 22
B
Beetles that prey on locusts......- 127
Birds, enemies of locusts-_..--.----- 113
Biid-laws should be enforced ----- 139
Birds should be protected .---_---- 169
Bounty Jaw, desirable features of_. 185
Box Turtle, eats locusts -..---.---- 114
Brachypeplus magnus ..-.-------- 228
Breeding places of spretius......--- 56
BUching Machines! 222.225 5S2. 156
Burning the young locusts--------.- 155
Burying locust-eggs, effects of--._-- 149
Cc
Calopienus Allanits..-i<ue-...-.--2 22
ce bi-viltatus__....---- 89, 194
6 differentialis......- 89, 194
ee JSemur-rubrum, full de-
SCription Ol sss ese sas eee 15
Caloptenus, peculiar characters of
the Penus ss were ee). | ore 15
Caloptents Ttalveus 2.2.2 52. 2__ 231, 221
Caloptenus spretus, detailed de-
SCUIPLION Ofsa eee eee eee 17

CULOPUCRUSWOUT GTS ean 27

Calosoma calidum -..--.- SNE Semana s 127

Carabidae, larvee of certain, devour

esosof locist=s eee eae eee ed
Cate birdies eaiei ee ae ene aad 114
Catching Tocustsee: 222225 -e ene 161

Chalcid fly, parasitic on spretus..-. 117
Changes that follow locust inva-

SIONS Pees Sees ea ee re wee 109
Cicindela, species that prey on .
STI CORE Sei rss fas MO MN a alts 128

Classificatory position of spretus.. 13
Climatic peculiarities of Western

lain sie s seas oe yee Ae eee tee 56
Climisyalocust. sass se0 eee ses eee 227
Coal-oil pans, how constructed_.-. 165
Coccygus Americanus _...--------- 114
Collecting locust-eggs _-----.------ 153

Comparative description of imma-
ture stages of spretus, femur-

PUOTUM ANG ALAMOS: o-seae ee = 26
Comparison of Red-legged Locust
and Rocky Mountain Locust-... 14

Compensation attending locust in-
AUIETOS Shes ee Ag eek LOS
Contrivances for catching young

VOCUSUS Sse aos, Sane se eS = 162
Coral-winged locust._-....----. ---- 102
Cotton batting, use of, in mraieee

AN OALTE CS Sore i Pe 166
Country in which spretus can not

permanently thrive..--.-----.--- 203
CRODLONSUUDUCOUG rere ae 122
Crow Blackbird ._.......--......-- 114
Crushing young locusts.----------- 157

D

Damage done by common locusts-.. 206.
Dawson, G M., his observations on

return migrations of sprefus._..- 48
Deilephila lineata ....--------.---- 112
Destination of departing swarms of

SPRCCUSH Ene wr a ecsciceaseue eS. 104
Destruction of young locusts... ---- 155
Destructiveness of spretus _-.----- 89:

Development of migrating instinct 200
Witkerentials lOcuSt=s--5-4--e-222— >= 194

234

Index.

Direction in which young locusts

Lita eae ee Pe as es ees 100
Direction taken by departing
swarms of spretus....---------. 103

Distinguishing characters of Rocky
Mountain Locust and Red-legged

OcCust sco tessa sas tee eee 15
Ditch for trap, size important____-_ 160
Ditching and trenching as safe-
~ guards against sprefus___.__----- 157
Diversified agriculture desirable... 174

E
Early visitations of Rocky Moun-
tain TWOCUSt sos s2 45 Sse eee ee 33

Eastern limit of locust invasions, 53, 203
Effects of young of spretus, where

hatched! 2’: S242 eat so eee eee 107

Egg-mass of spretus, construc-
VON Of 2 ose ee eee 71

Egg-masses of spretus, how many
formed by one female ----------- 72
Eges of spretus, how laid --------- 69
oe 4 where laid ------- 96
oe i when hatched_.-- 97
- of experiments witb, 140

: sf methods of de-
StROVINo. A Ae ees ie see ae meena 139
Evg-parasites of spretus_..-.-----. 117
Eggs of Silky Mite____-.----------- 116

Embryon of sprefus, growth and
Appearance Oleso.=2ses= = Sees se 74
Hragrostis powoidés.....---------- 110
TAMAR VOSUOPOM S82 ase cone oe eases 128
Escape of spretus from egg-------- 73
ELOTUSLO JUL 0UChUG Gane nese ee 134

Experiments with eggs—
BUENA Ores 2 Se See aes ee eee eae 149
EXpOSuEe LOjall==-peeen == see 148
Freezing and thawing--_-.-_--- 141
Soaking and drying...--...-... 148
F

Hal leehiarro win aes se oe eee 153

Famine and epidemics consequent
on locust invasions..--...._..__- 30
BAStine anGep ravers ssss === — sss 213

Femur-rubrum, destructiveness of,
9018) lh!) See SAS aoa eeu eS 38
/ Field Mouse, eats locust-eggs - .--- ilt
Hleshtyaeae seers sens PS Sy
Flight of spretus, direction of __.-. 96
i on extent of_._-_-- 85

Flight of spretus, noise of ..____-- $7
u ve sometimes noc-
tutnal 2.2.2 ee 83
Food plants of spretius._..._.._---- 89
Freezing and thawing eggs of
SDPCLUS 225 ee 141
Fruit trees, how protected___...-__- 165
a S > ANjULICS tO. sae 93
Cc :
GOLGLUS CCUG CUS= aa ae 114
Granulated grouse-locust___....__- 230
Grasshopper vs. locust__..-.-...-. 207
Great-crested Fly-catcher________-- 114
Green-striped locust._...___-.__-_- 229
Green variety of Rocky Mountain
locust ..2. --.5 222 27
H
Habits of young of sprefus___._.-- 98
Hard soil, why preferred for pur-
pose of oviposition._-.._........ 77
Harpalus, larve ef, devour eggs of
SPTOLUS . nn cnoe pee eee 125, 126
Harrowing locust-eggs........-.... 153
Harpalus Pennsylvanicus __....--- 127
Ilistory of locust ravages in
America. _ 12.) S322 33
Tlogs as destroyers of locusts. -.-- 171

Hymeropterous larva, parasitic on
eggs of Rocky Mountain Locust. 123

|
Ichneumons, probably parasitic 02
locusts’... 2.52 2 eee 128
Imago of spretus, flexibility of
newly developed legs of_____.-_. 81
Influence of moisture on locust-
CSUSs esau Lee ee ee 148
Intervals of oviposition...._..__-- 73
Invasion of 1818-19____.__-_...___- 33
a 1815249 )2 ie ees eae 34
u¢ 1855-2 34— 38
os 1874. 2:2 oe ee 39
es 18751 sss eee 42
sage: 1826.5. 2 49
Invertebrate locust enemies____-.- 115
Iirrication ys oo 2-4 ee 154, 171
J
Joel the prophet’s description of
locust: flights: +2. 2222 6se2— see = emer
K
Kansas locust-laws- ---._---_--- 178, 179

Kerosene, use of, as a locust-de-
StrOyer.222 ss-Sees-teee- 25-4 ee 162

Index. 235

‘Kings or Queens, locusts not led

Daten eee aerate sacceesl ee. 101

L
TERCNIUOSLER IG PUSCO SL. = 2s- Saseakae 126
Wapland wonesputss:. 2-2 .--2--5-< 113

Larve of Morning Sphinx----- 110, 111
Larva of Anihomyia, description of 120
Larve of Tachina-flies and flesh-

mies compared 220 02.2. .25- .U- 136
‘Larva of spre/us, full description of 20
‘Late planting desirable__...-....-- 170
‘Legislation on Jocusts------ pa eae 176
IS OWES OT ADS a eee eee 130
Limit of locust migrations ---.---- 60
MOGCUCEMMILennee Sat Se oe Sook 128
Locust plague no new thing ------- 29

Locust ravages east of Mississippi, 190

xg s how to prevent ... 139
Locust vs. Grasshopper-.--.-.----- 207 ©
Locusts, alarm caused by harmless

Species Off... s2% 0222 2. Soeeer ane 227
‘Locusts as food for man-.-.-___._-- 217
Locusts, flights of, east of the Mis- ©

SiSsipples-- ose Soa Serche aiare Peta 201
Locusts, flights of, in Illinois in

SESS Sah ceil I aa . 195

‘Locusts, flights of, in Iliinois in
1875, composed mainly of Atlanis 198
‘Locusts in America, earliest record

Locusts in South America____-...- 32

‘Locusts not a divine visitation.... 216

Locusts on Pacific coast, early -
RECON SwOherese cess tee ace Ls 32

Mantis Carolina, feeds on locusts, 128
Measurements of jfemur-rubrum.. 17
‘Measurements of locusts, how

fakkene o's cee OS eS ee 16
“Measurements of spretus__.--_---- Ot
Melanerpes erythrocephalus .....-- 114
Melanoplus or Caloptenus_-_-..-.- 209
JOU IOs es est Nee Pe gece 114
Migrations of locusts, cause of ..57, 200

ts ss influence of

wind in determining___-_.- 57, 104, 216
Migratory instinct of locusts------ 88
‘Migratory locust of Europe, de-

SULUCtiIVenEessiOfesla oe eae ee 30
‘Migratory locusts in Atlantic

PS LALOR meer Neots ya eis len ree A An 187

Military, employment of, against

LOCUSESINS Sere oi che eae ai ee 173
Mimus Carolinensis......-...-.--- 114
Minnesota locust-law__......-.---- 180
Missouri locust-law_.____...---..-- 177
Modification of species..-.____._-- 63
Molting processs2---o.-9ae4 eee 79
Molts, number of, in spretus ___--- 82
Mornin oy S phi eae eee ee 112
Myiarchus crinitus........---- ert:

N
Native home of spretus _...-....-- 61
Natural enemies of spretus....--- 113
Natural history of spretus_....-_-- 69
Nebraska locust-law----.-..------- 185
Ninety - fourth meridian, eastern

immitro frspneiesee sa oece- ease eee 65
INomenclatlitens22e=-seneaseaa pes 207
Non- migratory locusts, . injury

ROME eee ee ee eee ete 190
Non-migratory locusts, unusually

numerous some years-_--..-.---- 199
Number of eggs deposited by spre-

GUS Cot Rn. DAE Leek Ae ee 70

; be) :
GAPOdGA AUTON = 5 aS eee 89

CS mean7702 GROG O0n0 Lam pas es 31

ss phenicoptera..-- ------- 102
Omaha Conference....-------_..-- 53
Omnivorous propensities of locusts 91
Origin of migratory locusts - --.. 57
Oviposition of locusts..........--- 69

P

Panicum sanguinale ...-----..---- 110
Parasite of house-fly _.......------ 130
Paris Green, use of, for destroying

TOCUSES S222. 2a Saas Nese eees 164, 170
Pasimachus elongatus.-.---------- 127
Pennsylvania ground-beetle...._.- 127

Perpetuation and permanent settle-
ment of spretus east of 94th

meridian impossible ---.---.--.- 62
Plants uninjured by locusts. ---- 44, 170
Plectrophanes lapponicus ...------ 113
Ploughing the eggs under-...-.---- 153
Poultry destroy locusts_--..-.--.-- 17
Power of locusts for injury--.----- 85
Practical considerations~-_---..---- 139
Prairie fires useful in spring---.---- 169
Prairie fires vs. locust ravages. ---. 209
Predictions as to probable injuries

from locusts in 1875 .......-.-.-- 41

236

Preventive measures ........------ 169
Proclamation of Gov. Hardin_-_-_-- 213
EROMOCRUS GDUWOT.G228 aaa n ee nee 127
Prospective injury from locusts-_.- 230
Pupa of spretus, description of.... 20
Purslane, great abundance follows
LOCUStM DULY eee 111
Quiscalus versicolor.....---.------ 114
R
Rains, advantage of heavy.-.---.. 43
Rate of flight of locusts____...._-- 56
Rate of flight of locusts, variable._ - 96
Rate Of Spreads 222. =e eee 95
Rate of travel of young__-_____.-- 100
Ravages of locusts east of Missis-
SLPS a tena es 187
re-eyed Vireo. 35. es seen 114
Red-headed Woodpecker..----_.-- 1i3
Red- legged locust common in
Gnited” States. 228-2 eee = 14
Remedies against locusts_-...._.-- 139
Results arrived at by experiments
onveges ol locustsiass s2s--2e es 151
Return migration to _ British
AMOCLICAL.. 27/2 Hee eee eqs Ls 47
Return migration to British
America, theory of, strengthened
by occurrences in 1876.....---_- 50, 51
Rocky Mountain Locust purely
WAT CRICAN =~ = 2k AFe pekele Bee Se 28
Root crops, what ones safe.__._-- 175
s
Salvia trichostemmoides _.......-- 92
Sarcophaga caruaria......---.128, 185
sé SQTrACENIM. . 22> =.= S= 132
Side ditches and drains as traps for
OCU StS2 ees tee ba ges POR 160

Signal Service, availability of, in
communicating information as to

locust invasions.....--..-..-...- 172
Silky Mite soo eh ce ak a a 115
Skunk, enemy of sprefus_..-.._--- 114
Smudging and smoking.___._.._..- 168
Soldier-bug, feeds on locusts...._. 128
Species, geographical range of__.. 202
Species, failure of people to dis-

criminate between__....-.....-..- 204
Species, variation in............-_- 25

~~ Index.

Species vs. Variety and Race -_--.- 23.
Species, what constitutes a___.____ 24
Specific distinctions. arbitrary_... 25

Spines on legs of locusts, possible

use. of... 22 {eS eee "6.

Spretus and Atlanis probable races

Of femur Tuono:

Starvation caused by locust -inva-

sions—cases of, not wellattested. 46.

Slenopogon consanguineus __.---.. 127
Striped Squirrel, eats locust-eggs_. 114
Summer vs. Fall swarms-_-.__.--.- 58-
Sulphur, use of, in protecting trees 167
T
Taching anonyme 131
“. flavncud = 134.
Temperature at St. Louis in winter
of 18%6-%, ‘tablejofesses2—-- === 152
Tendency of hatching locusts to
push up wards:-33e25 =e 78.
Teltix Gronulaige ee 230°
Texas, early locust invasion of__._ 34-
Time of appearance of invading
Swarms . .-2 S265 2ee2 see eee 94.
Time of hatching of eggs ________- une
Tin, use of, in protecting trees ___. 166
Tragocephala viridifasciata..__-- 228.
Tramping ground infested with
locust-eggs :. 22-2 154.
Transformations of spretus_______- 69»
Trapping young locusts._-.___.--- Male
Trees, what usually avoided by
SPPCLUS. 5.5225. Soho. eee ee 91
Trombidium scabrum _.....------- 115.
$s Sericeumnnss ees 115-
s holocericeum _..----- 115
Two-striped locust_.------- eee 194
Vv
Vernonia noveboracensis _..._----- 92-
Vilfa vagine@ lord .. 2-222 see 111
WwW
Water, efficacy of, in ditches for
trapping locusts. -.---- J. 160°
White-lined Morning Sphinx_----- 112.

Wind, its influence in determining
course of locust swarms- _57, 104, 217

Y .
Yellow-tailed Tachina-fly_......_-. 134.
Yellow-billed Cuckoo.-..--..------- 114
Young locusts, how destroyed. .--- 155-

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The locust plague in the United States: