WINROWS OF GRASSHOPPERS. 77 



you the number and the voracity of this insect. This same 

 Mormon told me that the first time they came upon his land, 

 he had a piece of corn planted in a place that I know very well, 

 by the mouth of the canon, and it was just coming out in tas- 

 sel. They do not wait until the corn or the grain gets a little 

 hard ; they will not injure it then ; it is when it is in a soft and 

 succulent state that they attack it. He said that they came to 

 that piece of corn one morning, and the second night after, 

 there was not a single particle of it to be seen. They had not 

 only eaten off every leaf and stalk, but eaten the roots down 

 into the ground, so that the land looked as if no corn had ever 

 been planted upon it. He said, and others have told me, that 

 they have seen one of these flocks come on to a wheat-field in 

 the morning, where the wheat was all headed out, and at night 

 not a vestige could be seen in the whole field ; it had been 

 gnawed down into the very ground, just as far as they could 

 find a particle of the plant. And they sometimes not only 

 destroy the first crop, but a second and even a third. They 

 will come upon a fruit-tree, and not only eat every leaf, but 

 they will take every scrap of bark of that year's growth, so 

 that the twigs stand out perfectly bald and white. Sometimes 

 there comes a strong wind and drives them down into Salt 

 Lake, in such quantities that the waves throw them up in per- 

 fect winrows, as you see the kelp thrown upon our seashore. 

 Seeing them remain there, year after year, in such masses, gives 

 us some idea of the vast accumulation of animal remains in 

 geological times — we see how such immense masses of animals 

 could be pressed together in some places, when we see such a 

 vast accumulation of these grasshoppers pressed together around 

 this lake. 



There seems to be no way to get rid of these pests, because, 

 when they have eaten up all they can find in the valley, they go 

 up on the benches, — dry, hard sand, where nothing will grow, — 

 and there they deposit their eggs. There is no way of getting 

 at them, to destroy them, and the eggs hatch out the nest 

 spring, and after a certain time they come down and repeat 

 their ravages. Of course, there are certain times when the 

 season is unfavorable and kills them off, and the Mormons say 

 that they can generally tell the fall beforehand whether there 

 will be any " hoppers " in any given locality the next year. If 



