6 THE ORTHOPTERA OF MINNESOTA. 



statement made b}^ Capt. Jonathan Carver (in his "Narra- 

 tive" of the year 1766), that large swarms of locusts "in- 

 fest these parts and the interior colonies and oftentimes do 

 much mischief," shows that such occurrences took place and 

 were repeated. Of course it is rather difficult to say what 

 the Captain meant by "these parts," but the usual applica- 

 tion of the w^ord "interior " is to the regions west of the 

 Great Lakes. 



The visitation of Lord Selkirk's Red River colony in 

 1818 by locusts extended to portions of Minnesota. In 

 1830 and 1842 parts of the state were overrun by locusts ; 

 in 1849 they were found in vast numbers along the prairie 

 regions west of the bigwoods; in 1857 locusts destroyed all 

 the crops in the Red River Valley, so that the infant colony 

 did not have anj' grain, but w^as obliged to live by hunting 

 and fishing. The papers published in Minnesota during the 

 summer and autumn of 1856 are full of accounts of invading 

 swarms of locusts, and they reached the region lying along 

 the Upper Mississippi. They occurred in vast numbers at the 

 Chippewa Agency at Gull Lake (Cass county), and arrived 

 at Otter Tail Lake on July 24. During the last days of 

 August they reached St. Anthony. Judging from the ac- 

 counts published they swept over the whole region west of 

 the big woods. The records of the hatching swarms of 1857 

 are still more numerous; the insects caused immense dam- 

 age, "appearing in such masses as to crackle beneath the 

 feet of persons walking over the prairies." When they left 

 they went south and southeast, "for several days they were 

 high in the air, like a snowstorm." From 1863 to 1877 

 there was hardh^ a year in which the locusts did not make 

 themselves noticeable within our borders, but principall}' in 

 the Red River Valley when not heard of elsewhere. The 

 "oldest inhabitant" of Moorhead, Mr. Robert Probstfield; 

 gave the following years in which locusts appeared in that 

 vicinity : "In 1863, 1864, 1 865 (in 1865 very little damage 

 done; not numerous), 1866, 1867, 1869 (in a few localities 



