322 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1952 



of Rock Creek. Its origin and conditions are probably comparable 

 to those of the main Grasshopper Glacier which we have discussed. 

 According to Kimball (1899), there are grasshoppers embedded in ice 

 on the slopes of Mount Dewey, located about 6 miles southeast of 

 Grasshopper Glacier. He said that they are perfectly preserved, 

 as the ice is stationary, instead of being badly broken as often occurs 

 in a glacier that is subject to movement. 



In the central part of the Crazy Mountains of central Montana 

 there is a "grasshopper glacier" at the head of Cottonwood Creek. 

 During the warmer summers the grasshoppers are exposed in large 

 quantities. This glacier is labeled on a United States Forest Service 

 map of the Gallatin National Forest, published in 1947 and on a scale 

 of five miles per inch. A short distance southeast of this glacier 

 is another containing grasshoppers, which is not shown on the above 

 map. The latter drains into Pear Lake, which in turn goes into the 

 North Fork of Big Timber Creek. Both of the Crazy Mountains 

 "grasshopper glaciers" are mentioned by Dyson (1952) . 



Hayden (1873, p. 2) related the observations of two men in a survey 

 party who reached the summit of the Grand Teton in western Wyo- 

 ming. There were many flying grasshoppers (species not indicated), 

 especially in August and September, which became chilled and fell 

 on the snow and ice in vast numbers. There they melted myriads of 

 tiny holes in the ice, enabling the men to cling to the almost vertical 

 icy side of the peak. (Judged from present knowledge of Melanoplus 

 rugglesi, September would definitely be too late in the season for that 

 species to be on the wing.) Michelmore (1934) mentioned a dead 

 swarm of S. gregaria in the saddle of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. 

 Shipton (1934) , an experienced mountain climber, reported hundreds 

 of grasshoppers, presumed to be gregaria, which he found embedded 

 in the bare-ice surface of a glacier at over 16,000 feet above sea level 

 on Mount Kenya in 1929. 



This, then, is the story of Grasshopper Glacier, though many ques- 

 tions remain to be answered. It is certainly an unusual collecting 

 place for insects, and persistence and good luck probably will even- 

 tually reward collectors with several species of preserved grass- 

 hoppers as well as other insects. Because both Melanoplus rugglesi 

 and M. mexicanus mexicanus are important pest grasshoppers with 

 unusual behavior and intriguing past histories, any new evidence from 

 the glacier about them will be of interest to entomologists. Though 

 the glacier with its preserved grasshoppers is a curiosity of nature, 

 it is much more than that because of the basic facts of glacial age 

 and insect movement by air currents that will be more fully under- 

 stood as further information is gathered, 



