STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 161 



" On my ranch of 2,000 acres the beds of egg deposit do ftot amount 

 to more than five or six acres. I marked these spots carefully, so that 

 when the rainy season came I could plow the ground (deeply) and 

 thus destroy the eggs, and while grasshoppers were produced by the 

 million on adjoining ranches, none ivere hatched on my place, while 

 crops were sown and harvested on the plowed spots as usual." 

 Observations made during 1877 and 1878 and the present season upon 

 the locusts of Sierra Valley, confirm the descriptions and conclusions 

 of Mr. Cooper, particularly in regard to peculiar selections made by 

 the female for ovipositing, and the small area of these spots com- 

 l)ared with the region infested. Newspaper reports were rife with 

 statements that "every yard of Sierra Valley soil was filled with 

 eggs," whereas the writer believes that a few dozen acres would have 

 included the whole. Now it is plain that California is afflicted with 

 two kinds of locusts, very different in character and the severity of 

 their ravages. One is the high-flying, migratory, terribly voracious, 

 light-brown invader of the Caloxjtcnus family, against whose ravages 

 there is scarcely any provision, and whose habits and instincts have 

 been discussed under the head of the " Rocky Mountain Locust and 

 its Congeners." The other is the low-flying, sub-migratory, light-yel- 

 low and ashy-brown crdipoda atrox, or "atrocious" locust, whose feed- 

 ing ground may be limited, whose egg deposits certainly are circum- 

 scribed, and against which there is great hope of successful battle. 

 The_ presence of this locust in perhaps all parts of the Pacific States, 

 its liability at any time to become numerous and sub-migratory, its 

 peculiar habits and its vulnerability, causes much interest to be 

 centered upon it, and justifies a somewhat careful description. 



As in the paragraphs on " Classification," the strictly technical 

 terms necessary for precision and brevity will be defined when used, 

 in the hope of engaging the attention of the general reader to a most 

 interesting but little understood subject. 



EARLY LOCUST RAVAGES. 



Upon the authority of Mr. A. D. Taylor, in an article contributed 

 to the Smithsonian Institute in 1858, locusts have often devastated 

 portions of California. Away back in the last century, locust plagues 

 were noted on this coast as occurring in 1722, 1746 to 1749, 1753 to 

 1754, and 1765 to 1767. Since 1823 the grasshoppers have several times 

 ravaged the fields and gardens of the Franciscan missionaries. In 

 1834 and 1835 occurred a visitation of locusts, destroying the crops of 

 the missions and ranches, except wheat. In 1838 to 1840, crops about 

 San Francisco and San Rafael were destroyed, the insects remaining 

 three years. In 1846 corn and frijoles were completely consumed in 

 the plains of Salinas. The season was noted as a dry one. In 1852, Mr. 

 L. G. Yates, of Centreville, Alameda County, reports: "Some time 

 during the months of June and July, the hoppers came from a low 

 range of hills, arising from the salt marshes of the bay. Have been 

 noted in the same locality, but not in large numbers, every sea- 

 son since." The year 1855 is a well-known " locust year " of great 

 devastation in many sections of the Pacific States. The Shasta Cour- 

 ier notes "an immense flight of grasshoppers, going westward, the 

 greater portion very high; could only be seen by shading the eyes 

 from the sun. The press of the adjoining counties, and of Oregon, 

 notice the appearance and destructiveness of the locusts." They were 

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