INSECTS INJURIOUS TO CORN. 



329 



Grasshoppers lay their eggs in the latter part of the summer by 

 pushing their abdomens into the ground and filling the cavity thus made 

 with eggs. These eggs are usually deposited in grass fields. If not 

 in a grass field, they are 

 deposited, as a rule, in 

 the open and not in or 

 about timber. These eggs 

 remain over winter and 

 hatch in the spring into 

 young grasshoppers that 



. Fig. 67. — The Olive Grasshopper, Melanoplus dif- 



look like the adults, ex- ferenUaUs; natural size. 



cept they are smaller and have no wings. Everybody, however, recog- 

 nizes these insects when they first hatch as grasshoppers. To be sure, 

 the grasshopper eggs are fed upon by a number of parasitic and pre- 

 dacious insects and some other animals, and are subject to injury from 

 other causes, but when placed so as to not be in the shade, they stand 

 a good chance of hatching. 



It sometimes happens that the early warm days of spring cause a 

 good many of the grasshopper eggs to hatch, and extremely cold weather 

 following will kill them. This was the case to a marked degree this year, 

 where in some localities apparently all the grasshopper eggs of certain 

 species hatched some time before settled spring weather appeared and were 

 killed by the following freezes. These \'oung grasshoppers feed normally 

 upon grass of various kinds, also upon certain weeds, and when in unusual 

 numbers, will injure the grass fields to such an extent as to attract at- 

 tention. They may get upon almost all kinds of grass, farm, and orchard 

 plants, and eat off the leaves, or the fruit, or the bark, as the case may 

 be. 



It will be very exceptional, indeed, if grasshoppers in Missouri ever 

 become again so numerous as to warrant their capture by means of the 



hopper dozer. These hopper 

 dozers are nothing more or less 

 than very wide pans, drawn upon 

 runners, and having the back and 

 sides made of canvas or some 

 other material, so that when this 

 hopper dozer is pushed through 



Fig. 6.S.— The Two-Striped Grasshopper, , r- t 1 .1 orasshoDOerS wiU 

 Melanoiilus bivittatus; natural size. lUC UeiQ, ine grdSbuuppci s wm 



fly up and back and strike against the canvas and drop down upon one 

 another, where they will accumulate in a mass, and can be dumped out 



