ZOOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT. 



397 



LOCUSTS AND THE HORN FLY. 



No. 98 — Zoological Department. 



LOCUSTS. 



Within the past year or two many reports have been received from 

 various parts of the State regarding depredations made by grasshoppers, 

 locusts and allied insects. They have been doing much damage to meadows, 

 lawns and pastures, injuring fields of oats just before they are ready to 

 cut, and doing much harm to the fields of peppermint in the southern 

 counties where this plant is so extensively grown for its flavoring extracts. 

 At the college and vicinity the locusts have not been especially numerous 

 as far as known, and so no special experiment work has been done as to 

 means of prevention or their destruction. Several states that have been 

 suffering from similar attacks have endeavored to find suitable remedies 

 and recommended the best means found by them. Hoping that what has 

 already been learned and reported in other states will be of value'to peo- 

 ple in many regions of this State, when in accessible form, the present 

 bulletin has been issued. 



Two of our most common locusts: 



Fig. 1, (a) The red-legged locust. Mel- 

 anoplus femur-riibrum. (after Riley.) 



(6) The two-stripped locnst, Melonoplus bivittatus. 

 (after Riley.) 



Fortunately for the people of Michigan they need never fear an invasion 

 from the Rocky Mountain locust that so often devastes the crops in many 

 of the western states. It is a migrating locust which travels in large 

 armies. Although quite small in size these locusts eat every living plant 

 that grows in their path, but have never been known to migrate farther 

 east than the Mississippi. Our species of locust (commonly called grass- 

 hoppers) that injure our crops, travel very little through the season which 

 is to them their lifetime. The young hoppers at first have no wings and 

 can travel only by jumping. Later in the season when they reach maturity 

 they have fully developed wings are then able to travel farther and 

 easier. 



