208 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viil. 



The destruction of crops by the growing insects, in all the 

 settled regions was very great, and in many districts well nigh 

 complete. The exodus of these broods began in the early part 

 of July, but appears to have been most general during the middle 

 and latter part of that month, and first of August. The direc- 

 tion taken on departure was, with very little exception, south- 

 east or south. It is to be remarked, that as there does not seem 

 to have been during this period any remarkable persistency of 

 north-west or northerly winds, the insects must have selected 

 those favouring their intended direction of migration, an instinct 

 which has very generally been observed elsewhere. Though 

 most of the parents, in 1874, came from the west and north- 

 west, and Manitoba must have represented to those endiDg their 

 flight there, the south-eastern limit of their range ; the young 

 insects of 1875 thus took a south-eastward direction, just as 

 though starting from their usual breeding-grounds in the far 

 north-west, and showed no disposition to return to the region 

 whence their parents came. This direction of flight carried 

 many of the insects at once into a country of thick woods, 

 swamps, and lakes; and caused the repetition of the phenomenon 

 of the appearance of grasshoppers in great numbers about the 

 Lake of the Woods, a circumstance only once before noted — in 

 the summer of 1857.* This previous occasion however differed 

 from that of last year in being an extension of an invasion of 

 Manitoba from the west or north-west, and not resulting from 

 insects hatching in that province. 



It is probable that most of the grasshopper swarms of 

 Manitoba, thus entering the wooded country, were there harm- 

 lessly spent, for though some northern swarms reached the State 

 of Minnesota, the invasion appears to have been comparatively 

 unimportant. Northern swarms are noted to have passed over 

 Crookston (Polk County, Minnesota), and Fort Totten, (Dakota) ; 

 the greatest number appearing at the latter place July 19th. 

 The locust swarms described by Mr. Riley f in the following 

 paragraph, from information furnished to the Chicago Tribune, 

 dated July 13th, probably also came from Manitoba : " The first 

 foreign hoppers appeared on the Sioux City Road, alighting be- 



» Not 1867 as crroniously printed in Notes for 1874. 



f From Mr. Chas. V. Riley's very interesting Eighth Annual Re- 

 port on the Noxious, Beneficial, and other Insects of the State of 

 Missouri. 



