310 BEPOET OP THE COMLHSSIONEB OF AGRICULTUEE. 



leaves were lying on the groand, as the locusts nip tliem off near the 

 branch. 



Marble Valley is situat-ed between woody hills, and here the locnsts 

 did also a great deal of damage. Higher up in the bills, about 18 mili'.^ 

 above or east of Folsom, along the American Eiver and north to tin- 

 Central Pacific RaUroad, I was told everywhere, during my trip in tliis 

 direction, that the locusts appeared only occasionally in small places, but 

 here the woods are plentifully filled with them. The Xatoma compaiiv, 

 after all its praiseworthy efforts to destroy them, loses nearly everything;-. 

 The pear trees were nearly stripped of their leaves, but the fruit Avas nor 

 much injured ; the loss is about 4 tons out of 60. Out of 15 tous of ain :- 

 cots they lost one-third. Fifteen acres of peaches are nearly all destroyed 

 and nothing is left but a mass of stones lying on the ground; on these 

 trees the foliage has not been much injured. The loss of plums is sli^xltt ; 

 the young trees were stripped altogether. Coming to the vineyards, 

 here it looks bad ; hundreds of acres of young plants look as if dead, 

 with not a leaf left, and where they cannot be irrigated many of them 

 must die, since they have no protection from the hot sun above, and no 

 rain to be looked for for the next three months. 



As the insects marched in a body, in no particular direction, so long 

 as there was food, they sometimes loft a spot uninjured. The old plants 

 were eaten out Irom below and from the inside, while the insects were 

 yet unwinged, but afterward they were eaten Irom the top and outside. 

 Thus on trees the upper parts looked the most bare. The pedicels of 

 grapes were cut off, and the ground was full of grapes, or they were 

 still hanging in a dried condition on the plants. Owing to the plants 

 being nearly leafless the grapes were btimed by the hot sun, and accord- 

 ing to the last account I have heard, very litrlc will be saved out of the 

 1,300 acres of beariug plants. 



As to the enemies of the locusts, I have found no parasites on them, 

 except the flies already sent to you. I have brought along several hun- 

 dred locusts, but apparently very few of them aro parasitized. I have 

 often watched the Tachina flies and their manner of laying eggs on the 

 locusts. They are very restless, and every time a "hopper" gets on the 

 wing they will attempt to get Ijetween the wings. I have held my in- 

 sect net iu front of me, folded, where they would sit on it, and by walk- 

 ing along slowly I could notice them nicely going for every locust that 

 flew up, and returning again after their attempt. Generally the hopper 

 will let himself drop as soon as the fly gets between his wings, and rub 

 the fly off with his legs. These flies are found everywhere where the 

 "hoppers" are, yet not iu very great numbers, although the ground be- 

 neath the Iruit trees at Xatoma was full of the:r pupre, and all the " hop- 

 pers-' which were here dead by the thousands were destroyed by them. 



At White Eock the locusts died by tons during May, but I was un- 

 able to find out the reason. They would sneak into any shady place, 

 under houses, in cellars, under boards, «S:c., and die. The air was lull 

 of the bad smell from the decaying insects. All the viclls and holes wvra 

 full of them ; they were so abundant that they had to be shoveled a\v;iy 

 from the entrances to the houses. Mr. Chapman, who had 1,000 fowls, 

 800 of which were turkeys, had fed them and his pigs besides on nothing 

 Ijut locusts for five weeks. Two hundred of the turkeys died from the 

 effects of eating them ; their crops were found dried up. I have exam- 

 ined the ground carefully wherever the locusts died in such numbers, 

 and have found some of the dipterous pupae, yet not sufficient to prove 

 that they were the destroyers. Still, everything had been scratched 

 over and over by the hungry fowls after the hoppers had left. There 



