172 TEANSACTIOm OF THE 



This creature infests the bodies o£ locusts, growing to be long worms, 

 coiling all about the internal organs, distending the abdomen to the 

 utmost before death ensues, and the Gordius escapes, burrows into 

 the earth and seeks a pool of water in which to finish its transforma- 

 tions and lay its seven to eight million eggs. The common belief 

 that those creatures originate from horse hairs is entirely erroneous. 



REMARKABLE LOCUST INSTINCT. 



In connection with insect enemies a most remarkable phenomenon 

 regarding locust movements is noticed in regions invaded by the 

 Rocky Mountain locust — one that may most probably be observed 

 here when understood — and is best told in the language of Professor 

 Rile}^: "Governor Morris, of Manitoba, started late in July, 1876, 

 from Winnepeg northwest to make a treaty with certain Indians, and 

 during the first five or six days of August he encountered vast 

 .swarms of locusts. The wind was blowing strong from the west all 

 the time — just the right direction to carry them straight over into 

 Manitoba. The Governor watched their movements with the great- 

 est anxiety, fearing that the Province would be devastated as it had 

 heen the year before. Yet during all the time he was passing through 

 the immense swarms they bore doggedly to the south and southwest, 

 either tacking against the wind or keeping to the ground when the 

 wind was too strong. Nothing was more remarkable than the man- 

 ner in which they persisted in refusing to be carried into Manitoba." 



Mr. Whitney, one of the Assistant Commissioners, states: "In set- 

 tling in 1877, the locusts avoided those localities in Minnesota in 

 which they had hatched and done most injury previously, but 

 selected such as had not suffered for some years past." "We are 

 induced to believe," remarked Professor Hiley, "that there is more 

 than mere coincidence in this. Every careful observer knows how 

 generally the locust, wherever they abound most numerously, are 

 infested with and debilitated by the red silky mite, and other enemies. 

 We cease to wonder that locusts quit such a country as soon as their 

 wings become strong enough, and that invading swarms avoid such 

 localities. We may wonder at the instinct wdiich guides them, but 

 no more than we must ever wonder at the many equally incompre- 

 hensible instincts which guide most animals in the preservation and 

 j)erpetuation of their species." 



Now, when it is remembered that the "hated" locust, like our 

 "atrocious" one, exists for a season only, and that these invading 

 swarms which "insisted in not being carried over into Manitoba," 

 were young locusts just having acquired wings in the permanent 

 region far to the west, their conduct becomes the more wonderful. 

 They could have had no experience of the danger ahead — must have 

 been warned by instinct, and that, too, an inherited and special bne. 



HARMLESS LOCUSTS. 



Much alarm is sometimes occasioned by harmless grasshoppers and 

 locusts, but a few words of description will distinguish them. The 

 large (two and a half inches long), wingless, beautiful resident of the 

 Sierra Valley is often so regarded. He is so slow in motion that he 

 has been aptly named the " clumsy locust." 



A large (two inches long), grayish locust, that has very long wings, 



