June, 1905] Snodgrass : The Coulee Cricket. 77 



individuals made pursuit, one catching hold of the protruding viscera 

 and pulling out a long piece of intestine. The other pursuer immedi- 

 ately grabbed the other end of the piece and for a while they had a 

 fierce tug of war for possession. Finally one gave up and the other 

 ate the capture. Then both hurried again after the first one but he 

 had made good his evasion. 



Such cannibalistic sights are common. If an individual is injured 

 and thrown among the others he is at once attacked and eaten. But 

 fresh meat of any sort is devoured with equal avidity. During the 

 early part of the mornings there are generally to be seen a large num- 

 ber of half dead females being eaten. The females apparently weaken 

 and die on the morning after they lay their eggs. These spent females 

 form the breakfast of a large number of the well ones. 



The crop contents of several individuals taken in the midst of a 

 cannibalistic meal consisted of a dark brown, pulpy mass. Many 

 other crops taken from specimens of the Coulee City band contained 

 the same sort of mass. In fact, only one was found containing vege- 

 table matter — a green, pasty mass easily recognizable as plant food. 

 Only one or two individuals were ever seen here feeding on vegeta- 

 tion ; they appeared to subsist almost entirely on one another, especi- 

 ally on the females that succumbed in the mornings. This, however, 

 as before stated, is not true of all the bands. Those in the Badger 

 Mountains were seen voraciously feeding on vegetation, and in several 

 places young wheat fields have been completely destroyed by them. 



The large band that in the summer of 1902 was living about 

 a mile and a half east of Coulee City was apparently a stationary 

 colony. Residents in and about Coulee City said the crickets had been 

 at the same place in about the same numbers for years back. They 

 knew nothing of migratory habits in connection with them. The 

 writer observed the females laying eggs here in abundance during 

 June of 1902. When the site of the colony was visited again during 

 the same month in 1903 not a cricket was to be found. Nobody knew 

 anything about them except that they had not been seen as customary 

 in other years. But no one could state whether they had hatched out 

 in the spring and had later moved off, or whether the eggs never 

 hatched. What actually became of this band is still to be determined. 



The migratory bands live on the west side of Grand Coulee and 

 have mostly started from the southern end of Moses Coulee. The 

 writer visited one of these travelling hordes that had made its way in a 



