GRASSHOPPERS AND OTHER INJURIOUS INSECTS OF 1911 AND 1912. 



41 



While it is true that sometimes a decided check is placed upon 

 the increase of an injurious insect by some of its natural enemies, 

 these agencies must not be relied upon by the farmer. These checks 

 almost invariably act too slowly to be of any great value, and the 

 farmer who waits for them to act, before acting himself, may loose 

 his crop in consequence. Mr. Somes in his report to this office 

 voices our sentiments exactly. He says : "It is vastly wiser to ac- 

 cept all of these natural agencies for the good they will do and to 

 augment the destruction by such methods as man may devise. The 

 hesitation and delay on the part of the farmer is in considerable 

 degree responsible for the continued increase of the pest. I am 

 convinced that if but a small percentage of the farmers in the infest- 

 ed territory had, last spring, (1911), used such methods of control 

 as were known, and had acted at the proper time the damage from 

 grasshoppers could have been very materially reduced." 



Pig. 29. Grasshoppers killed by fungous disease are frequently 

 seen clinging to tops of grasses. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE III. 

 1. Sparagemon aequale; 2. The Slender Meadow Grasshopper, Xiphidium faseiatum; 

 3. The Small Striped Ground-cricket, Nentobius fasciatus ; 4. A "Cricket-Like Grasshopper," 

 C'evtophUus sp; 5. Xiphidium niiiropleuriim ; 6. The Clouded Locust, Encoptolophus sordidus , 

 female; 7. The Lesser Migratory Locust, Melanoplns atlanis, and sec. view of last segment of 

 male; 8. MeUm('plus coUtnus, and dorsal view of male genital plates of il/. Ziovdus on left and 

 M. coUinus on right. 



