BROADHEAD THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST, ETC. 347 



acre. They are very tenacious of life. After exceedingly heavy 

 rains, I would go out and find them thickly seated on a low stalk 

 of oats, and it seemed that the rains washed very few into the 

 streams and drowned but few, if any. Bushels of them might 

 be swept into a pile, and straw thrown over them and set on fire ; 

 only those at and near the surface would be burned — those in the 

 interior scarcely scorched. 



Chickens and hogs would eat the locusts with avidity, and 

 these would eat each other when maimed. 



AFTERWARDS. 



The fields and woods at the period of departure of the lo- 

 custs were dry and verdureless as a well-beaten road ; in fact, 

 in some places scarcely any vegetation grew during the entire 

 season, unless seeds were planted. Rich creek bottoms were ob- 

 served bare of all vegetation a month after the " hegira," except 

 the leaves upon the trees, whereas ordinarily these bottom lands 

 present a luxuriant growth. The chief forest trees were not much 

 intei-fered with. 



June 20th, we find growing only the following plants wholly 

 or in part not interfered with, viz. : Salvia trlchostemmoldes, 

 Vemonla JVoveboracensls, Apocynum cannabinum, Ascleplas 

 Cornutl, Ipomixa pandurata. The Ascleplas, after being cut 

 and withered, would be eaten, and once I detected the locusts 

 nibbling at the growing plant. These were about all the 

 plants vegetating at that time. Others growing up imme- 

 diately thereafter were purslane ( Portulacca oleracea), very 

 abundantly, more so than I ever saw it before, and occupying 

 entire fields, and even yards and roadsides and waste ground, 

 places where not ordinarily found. Phytolacca decandra (poke- 

 weed) was very abundant, filling small fenced lots ; and what 

 seemed curious was, that most plants appeared gregarious, only 

 a single species, but in great numbers, occupying a certain space. 

 The lately introduced, but now abundant, prostrate Amarantus 

 Blitum was unmolested ; many of its stems were 6 feet long, 

 spreading over perhaps ioo square feet, the entire plant weighing 

 15 pounds. The common nettle, Solanum Carollnense, soon 

 sprang up everywhere ; although always common in Eastern 

 Missouri, it has not heretofore abounded here so as to be trouble- 

 some. This year it was abundant, growing on all soils. The 



