April, '12] WASHBURN: GRASSHOPPERS IN MINNESOTA 113 



treatment, interested and misguided citizens ordered the machine 

 and dead hoppers to be removed. 



About seventy-nine Orthopterous species were collected and named 

 during the summer's work, which must not be regarded as representing 

 our entire Orthopterous fauna. Of these species, as you will readily 

 imagine, only a comparative few were strikingly injurious, namely, 

 Melanophis bivittatus, M. atlanis, M. femur-rubrum and M. differ- 

 entialis, to which harmful species we may possibly add Stenobothrus 

 curtipennis, and, to a lesser extent, Camnula pelludda. 



A note-worthy fact in connection with our operations this year is 

 the extreme abundance of M. bivittatus, which easily led in numbers 

 of individuals in almost the entire tract referred to above. From 

 being secondary in economic importance three years ago, it has taken 

 the lead this year as being the most abundant of injurious forms. As 

 a fact accessor}^ to the abundance of grasshoppers in Minnesota the 

 past three years, and particularly the past two years, it is to be re- 

 marked that two Meloid beetles, Macrobasis unicolor and Epicauta 

 pennsylvanica, were extremely abundant and injurious in our state 

 during the early part of the summer. Mr. Somes ascribed the abun- 

 dance of these beetles this year to the abundance of grasshoppers in 

 the preceding year, and I believe his theory in this connection is a 

 good one. 



While experimenting with a poison spray we have at the same time 

 urged farmers to use the old-time hopperdozer, personally showing 

 them in many cases how to make the same, and have also been advo- 

 cating late fall plowing, poison baits in gardens, but particularly to 

 protect the latter, the placing of flocks of turkeys, which not only have 

 an insatiable appetite, as you know, for grasshoppers, but are a profit- 

 able adjunct upon any farm. Many farmers believe that a grass- 

 hopper striking the drenched sheet at the back of the hopperdozer, 

 or falling into the pan and then getting out, is not killed, and we have 

 been in the habit of assuring them that the slightest drop of oil upon 

 an insect of this kind wdll kill, and that each one of these grasshoppers 

 is doomed. Mr. Somes' observation this summer would seem to 

 indicate that that statement must also be qualified, and that it must 

 be acknowledged that although short-winged forms or wingless stages 

 that are wet with the oil undoubtedly perish, inasmuch as the oil 

 reaches the spiracles, many long winged forms do not die because of 

 the protection to the spiracles afforded by the wings. 



We have not advised the burning over of fields alive with young 

 hoppers, believing the same to be dangerous and of questionable 

 utility in a country where a hay crop is an important feature. We 

 encourage co-operation, and we have especially advised action against 



2 



