Ninth Annual IIeeting. 63 



this hypothesis the people of nearly the whole country so scourged during this year, and 

 so threatened next spring, may console themselves that the evil is but temporary ; they 

 may have to fight their tiny foe most desperately next spring, but they have also the 

 assurance that even if he prove master of tlie iield, he will vacate in time to allow of 

 good crops of some of the stajjles, and that he may not return again for years. On the 

 other hypotliesis — for wliicli there is no apparent, and no real reason — ruin stares them 

 inevitably in the face. 



Tiie causes which limit the eastward flight of the winged swarms that come from the 

 nortliwest, are, with the majority of the people, still more difficult to appreciate ; for most 

 persons can see no reason why a swarm that overruns the westerns portions of Minnesota, 

 Iowa and Missouri, should not extend to the eastern borders of tlie same States, or into 

 Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and eastward. Without discussing some of the more occult cli- 

 matic influences that bear on the belief that they never will, the principal arguments rest 

 in the facts that — 1st, the power of flight of any insect that lias a limited winged exist- 

 ence, must somewhere find a limit ; 2d, tliat all past exiserience has shown that Culop- 

 tenus spretus has never extended, in a general way, beyond the limit indicated, and that 

 as long as the present average conditions of wind and climate prevail, it is reasonable to 

 suppose that it never will. 



One of the principal difficulties in the way of a proper apprehension of the facts is 

 found in the ^lilure, in the popular mind, to discriminate between species. The ordinary 

 newspaper writer talks of the grasshopper, or the locust, as though all over the country 

 and all over the world there was but one and the same species. One of the governors 

 present at the conference referred to, was at first fully of the belief that our Rocky 

 Mountain pest came all the way from Asia. In the case of this destructive species, even 

 some entomologists have added to the difficulty by erroneously claiming that it is com- 

 mon all over the country to the Atlantic ocean. 



The above thoughts are suggested by the following reports, that have just met my eye, 

 in the Cincinnati Gazette of the 24th inst., from Dayton and Hamilton, respectively: 



"The advent of Kansas grasshoppers, over Sunday and until Monday evening, in great sunibers 

 throughout this city, is a most remarkable incident. They were found early Sunday morning, and left, 

 as suddenly as they came, on Monday evening." 



"A shower of mammoth grasshoppers came down upon our town and vicinity on Saturday night. 

 We have never seen such large ones before, and we understand from old citizens that they are entire 

 strangers in this part of the country. We saw a boy have a string tied to two of them, (which were as 

 long as a man's finger,) trying to drive them, and he succeeded pretty well." 



"A flock of grasshoppers alighted in Hamilton about 11 o'clock on Saturday night, from the north- 

 west. Those that were not drowned in the river or killed by the heavy rain, were probably gobbled up 

 before Sunday night by the chickens." 



Such reports as these very naturally confirm the unscientific in the idea that the locust 

 plague of the West, or so-called "Kansas grasshopper," has overstepped the limits ento- 

 mologists ascribe to it, and is upsetting the conclusions of science. The same swarm 

 passed over Oxford, in the same State, in a southwesterly direction, and fortunately that 

 veteran and well-known apiarian, the Rev. L. L. Langstroth, who has not forgotten to 

 be a close observer, had specimens sent to me. They prove to be the American acrid- 

 ium {Acridium Amerieanum). As stated in my Eighth Report, it is the largest and most 

 elegant locust, tlie i)revailing color being dark brown, with a pale yellowish line along 

 the middle of the back when the wings are closed. The rest of the body is marked 

 with deep brown, verging to black, with pale reddish-brown, and with whitish or green- 

 ish-yellow ; the front wings being prettily mottled, the hind wings very faintly greenish, 

 with brown veins, and the hind shanks generally coral-red, with black-tipped white 

 spines. The species is quite variable in color, size and marks, and several of the varie- 

 ties have been described as distinct species — by the species grinders. It has a wide 



