NOTES ON THE WINGLESS GRASSHOPPER. 



423 



though a few get over. They can be driven by any rattling noise, and 

 are very timid, alarm spreading rapidly through a considerable host of 

 them ; but the fright once over, they invariably return to their original 

 course. 



A house is no impediment to them. They do not turn aside, but 

 go over it. They devour all kinds of vegetation, but prefer the culti- 

 vated annuals, and do not seem sensitive to poisonous agents ; tobacco 

 and stramonium are eaten by them voraciously. A gentleman of Yreka 

 smeared some vegetables with a mixture of strychnia, arsenic, corrosive 

 sublimate, croton oil, and lamp oil, and they devoured them with avidity 

 and perfect impunity. Nor do they seem sensible to pain. If cut in 

 two parts, the head often continues eating; and if legs enough are left, 

 it crawls off readily, and remains active for several hours. The hinder 

 part, severed from the fore part, has been seen to insert the ovipositor 

 into the ground as if to deposit eggs. 



Of the many plans devised to keep the wingless grasshoppers from 

 fields, the tin protective mentioned below is the only one that has been 

 found successful. It was contrived by a gentleman 

 in Shasta valley, where it is generally adopted, and 

 was found to answer the purpose perfectly last sum- 

 mer, when the crops were threatened by greater 

 numbers of grasshoppers than were seen there before. 

 Fig. 1. End view. A board eight or twelve 

 inches wide, closely fitted to the land, is nailed 

 against stakes driven into the ground on the field 

 side. A thin strip of wood or lath is nailed on the 

 upper edge of the board, about three inches wide at 

 least, and about a quarter of an inch thick. A strip of tin or zinc, two 

 and a half inches wide is next tacked against the outer edge of the lath. 



Fig. 1. 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. 2. Side view, looking outwards from the field. C is the strip of 

 tin, two and a half inches wide, tacked against the lath, which is nailed 

 on top of the board, eight or twelve inches wide. A little earth is gen- 

 erally heaped against the board on the side looking from the field, to 

 prevent the grasshoppers from creeping under where the inequalities 

 or looseness of the ground would favor them. 



The operation of the tin protective consists in the inability of the 

 grasshopper to reach from the under surface of the lath. Fig. 1, 

 around the edge of the tin to the upper surface of the lath, which would 

 be necessary to enable it to get on the top of the protective and enter 

 the field. The strip of tin should not be less than two and a half 



