anoplus diferentialis. The farmers speak of them as " those big 

 yellow fellows." Mr. Edwards stated that the grasshoppers had not 

 been so injurious in that tract as farther west. Yet wherever the al- 

 falfa was young and tender from recent sowing nothing apj)eared 

 above ground but stubble. Where the plants were older and tougher 

 the damage was not so noticeable. In the afternoon and the next fore- 

 noon we visited a number of alfalfa fields, and found conditions much 

 the same as upon the first day. 



In the afternoon of the 80th, Hon. A. C. Dyer, county attorney for 

 Edwards county, took us to a locality west of Kinsley where the 

 damage had been great. Here the small Rocky Mountain Locust 

 was more abundant, with a goodly number of the two-striped Melan- 

 oplus hlvitattus, but, as before, the Differential Locust was by far the 

 more abundant. Adjacent to one piece of alfalfa there had been a 

 piece of corn which they entered after the alfalfa had been cut and 

 completely strijjped it, killing it before tassels had appeared. 



It was not, however, for the purpose of observing the amount of 

 damage done that the visit was made so much as to note existing 

 conditions. These will be discussed farther on under the head of 

 "Alfalfa and the Grasshoppers." Here we will say that everywhere we 

 were glad to observe that of the Differential Locust {M. differentialis) 

 there were apparently as many dead as alive to be seen. Natural ene- 

 mies were at work, but too late to be of any assistance in preserving 

 this year's crop, though certainly of benefit in curtailing the number 

 of eggs which would hatch to destroy next year's growth. In many 

 cases the cause for death was apparently the work of a fly which 

 deposits its eggs upon the back of the grasshopper. The larvfe — 

 small, whitish, worm-like creatures, or maggots — soon find their way 

 into the interior of the grasshopper and produce the death of the 

 insect. These larvae were found in a number of the specimens taken, 

 and later two of them changed in the laboratory to adults. They 

 proved to be flesh-flies, {Sarcopliogo sp.) Many of the 'hoppers had 

 been deprived of one or both wings- — the work of the locust mite. 



Grasshoppers belong to the order of insects known as Orthoi^tera 

 or straight-winged insects, such as the cricket, katydid, and praying 

 horse. This order is divided into several families, of which the Ac- 

 rididte or grasshoppers form one. Since the subdivisions or subfami- 

 lies are classed according to habits as well as structure, it might be 

 well to mention them briefly, so that the casual observer may know 

 from the insect in hand whether or not it is a highly injurious form. 



One group, found more generally in low and marshy land, is char- 

 acterized by a very receding front, forming a sharp angle at vertex of 

 the head. This subfamily, Tryxalinoi, are not abundant enough to 

 cause serious damage. 



