THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



133 



sustain itself in the air, and allows the breeze to waft it along. An 

 observer proved this by ascending to the top of the State University of 

 Nebraska, when a swarm of locusts was passing, and letting loose among 

 the flying grasshoppers small bunches of cotton. He found that the cotton 

 sailed along quite as fast as the grasshoppers did. 



Their numbers are inconceivably great. A British officer who saw a 

 swarm in Syria estimated their number at 180,000,000,000,000. The 

 clouds of them seen in the West have often exceeded 50 miles in length 

 by 20 in breadth, with a depth of from a quarter of a mile to a mile; 

 1,500,000 bushels of their dead bodies were estimated to be lying on the 

 shores of Salt Lake, in Utah, after a visitation of their hordes. And their 

 eggs are found in the ground in numbers of from 100 to 15,000 to the 

 square foot, in localities favorable to their deposition. Such are some of 



the reliable statistics gathered regarding 

 the Rocky Mountain Locust. 



This locust is a near relation of our 

 common Canadian locust ( Caloptenus 

 femur-rubrum), fig. 19. The latter has 

 often been injurious to the crops, particularly of grass and hay, but has 

 little tendency to migrate. It has a vast range, from Labrador to the 

 Pacific coast,, including the Western States and Mississippi Valley as far 

 south as 35 . 



A curious and fortunate fact with regard to the locust is that it does 

 not become acclimated in the regions to which it migrates. The hordes 

 from the North, fresh from the invigoiating air of the mountains, are much 

 stronger and more vigorous than their progeny, born the succeeding year 

 in the plains of Missouri and the other Western States. Prof. Aughey, 

 of the State University of Nebraska, tested their muscular strength by 

 attaching their hind legs to a delicate spring balance and observing the 

 degree of strength they exerted. He invariably found that the locusts 

 from the mountains were stronger than those born in the plains. He also 

 found that the mountain insects could live without food for several days 

 longer than the others. Their eggs are also injured by the moister 

 climate, so that it is estimated that fully one-half become addled and 

 never hatch. These circumstances tend to so reduce their numbers in the 

 new habitat that in a few years the species dies out. 



Leaving the locusts, we will pass to the more pleasing duty of noticing 



