49 



"some complaint of grasshoppers damaging corn" in Stark county. 

 Correspondents also state that the pests had injured oats "very 

 much" in Tazewell county ; that "oats were injured by grasshoppers" 

 in Warren county, and, tinally, that "the grasshoppers were very 

 numerous and did some damage to meadows and oats in Woodford 

 county." 



HABITS AND LIFE HISTORY. 



Prof. Forbes has summarized, in the article mentioned above, the 

 life history of these species as follows : 



"These locusts are single-brooded as far as observed; they hiber- 

 nate in the egg, hatching in midsummer; pass through five succes- 

 sive moults, gaining their full size, and with this their wings, in 

 August, and commence to lay their eggs in September. The females 

 deposit these in the earth, boring cylindrical holes for the purpose 

 with the abdomen, and laying the eggs in a symmetrical mass within 

 the burrow thus formed. With the egg mass is extruded a quantity 

 of mucus, which soon hardens and forms a sort of case or matrix, 

 in which the eggs are imbedded. The upper part of the hole is also 

 filled with this mucus. The female is commonly busied from two 

 to four or five hours in the deposit of a single egg mass, and lays, 

 ordinarily, from two to four such masses in different holes, upon 

 different days, commencing this process of oviposition, as a rule, 

 about a month after she has acquired her wings. After this process 

 is completed, the exhausted females soon perish. They select by 

 preference, for oviposition, hard and dry ground, roadsides and 

 pastures being especially favorite localities. Meadows and pastures 

 are commonly resorted to by the mature females, especially the lat- 

 ter, as the eggs seem not to be laid ordinarily on ground covered by 

 luxuriant vegetation. I have never known them deposited in culti- 

 vated earth. 



"The food habits of these locusts are extremely simple, and con- 

 sist in eating nearly everything that comes in their way. They are 

 quiet by night, and indeed, as they mature, they select elevated po- 

 sitions as roosts, climbing to the tops of stems of grass in meadows, 

 to the tassels of the stalks in corn fields, and even deserting fields 

 of low herbage if they can find more elevated roosting points near 

 by. When very abundant, and when the weather continues dry, they 

 occasionally swarm like tbe Eocky Mountain locust, but rarely flying 

 continuously to any great dist.iiice, or indeed taking any definite 

 course." 



In many respects the outbreak of these locusts the past season is 

 similar to that recorded as having taken place at varying intervals 

 since the settlement of Illinois ; the destruction thus caused in 1868-69 

 being especially noteworthy. It was probably due to the combina- 

 tion of a variety of local and meteorological causes favoring the 

 undue development of these locusts, which are ordinarily kept below 

 the danger line by their insect and other enemies. Even in the re- 

 gion indicated as infested, the destruction was largely local, the 

 farmers of one county sutfering serious loss, while the lands of their 

 neighbors in the county adjoining were free from attack. 



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