GRASSHOPPER GLACIER OF MONTANA — GURNEY 313 



currence was known prior to Kimball's survey in 1898. Prospectors 

 in the 1880's probably discovered them. Notes filed at the United 

 States National Museum by the late A. N. Caudell, a specialist in the 

 identification of grasshoppers and related insects, include the remark 

 that on September 26, 1914, and November 17, 1919, he prepared mem- 

 oranda on Grasshopper Glacier for Dr. L. O. Howard, then Chief of 

 the United State Bureau of Entomology, but the memoranda have 

 not been located. An anonymous unpublished report from the His- 

 torical Records of the Custer National Forest states that Forest Serv- 

 ice officers collected specimens in 1914 that were identified as Melano- 

 plus spretus, which we now know as M. mexicanus mexicanus. Un- 

 doubtedly these specimens were examined by Caudell and led to the 

 1914 memorandum mentioned. Alden (1922) tells of gathering speci- 

 mens which likewise were identified as spretus by Caudell. Thirteen 

 specimens from the glacier are in the National Museum. They are 

 somewhat fragmentary, but two are males, which possess the special 

 features that are distinctive of species in the genus Melanoplus. They 

 are clearly Melanoplus mexicanus mexicanus, commonly known as the 

 lesser migratory grasshopper or Rocky Mountain grasshopper. The 

 significance of these tioo common names and the long history of this 

 species will be told here only sufficiently to explain why the discovery 

 of this particular grasshopper in the ice is of outstanding interest. 

 During the past century, especially in the 1870's and 1880's, farmers 

 of the Great Plains and of the western prairies beyond the Mississippi 

 River often were plagued by great hordes of grasshoppers which ap- 

 peared in migratory swarms and devastated crops. In its typical 

 condition the dominant species had pink or bright-red hind tibiae, 

 the wings were noticeably long, and migrations of many miles fre- 

 quently occurred. This grasshopper had various common names, of 

 which Rocky Mountain grasshopper has persisted, though it was 

 often known as a locust. The scientific name applied to it by Amer- 

 ican entomologists during the early 1870's when federally supported 

 investigations were in their infancy was Caloptenus spretus Walsh, 

 later changed to Melanoplus spretus (Walsh) . About the same time, 

 especially farther east, it was noticed that certain grasshopers could 

 scarcely be distinguished from spretus, though they averaged smaller 

 and shorter-winged, did not migrate conspicuously, and the hind tibiae 

 were occasionally pale bluish green. These smaller specimens arc of 

 the lesser migratory grasshopper, given various scientific names by 

 the older entomologists working largely independently of one another 

 and not realizing that the subject of their study inhabits most of tem- 

 perate North America and that it looks somewhat different in various 

 areas and under different conditions of food and climate. Its identity 

 as Melanoplus mexicanus mexicanus was not finally established until 



