PSYCHE. ; 379 
be observed in other insects that when they 
are sluggish or at rest they are not so 
readily affected by medicinal agencies as 
when in a state of motion or excitement. 
I remember that, during one or two 
years, at a certain season, which, as far 
as my recollection serves me, was in 
April, I noticed numerous specimens of 
Microdon globosus, a syrphid fly, issue 
from a nail-hole in the plastered wall of 
an apartment in a dwelling-house, as 
though the flies had passed the winter 
Numerous 
stances, which will occur to experienced 
within the walls of the house. 
entomologists, might be cited of the con- 
gregation of winged insects in sheltered 
situations for the purpose of hibernation, 
this habit being only a modification of the 
general habit in hibernating insects to seek 
a place for individual shelter. 
Washington, 11 Nov. 1882. 
PROMOTING LOCUST RAVAGES. 
BY BENJAMIN PICKMAN’ MANN, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
It is well established that the year 
1874 was characterized in the state of Kan- 
sas by the most extensive ravages of the 
so-called Rocky Mountain locust, Calopte- 
nus spretus, which insects flew into the 
state from the west and the north, and 
stripped large areas bare of vegetation. 
The devastation in that year occurred prin- 
cipally in the western and central portions 
of the state, but, as Dr. C. V. Riley says 
in his 8th report as state entomologist 
of Missouri, ‘‘the greatest bulk of the 
eggs were [was] laid as the locusts 
approached the eastern limits of the state.” 
In 1875 ‘‘ the damage done was by the 
young locusts, which hatched in enormous 
numbers in the eastern part of the state.” 
The purpose of this note is that I may 
publish a communication sent to me by 
Mr. J. P. Brown, formerly, for twelve 
years, a resident of eastern Kansas, from 
which state he removed, discouraged by 
the ravages of the locusts, in the fall 
of 1875. This communication explains 
sufficiently at least one of the causes of the 
enormous prevalence of young locusts in 
that state, in 1875. A similar showing 
has already been made for the state of Ne- 
braska by Prof. S. Aughey in the Ist 
report of the U. S. entomological commis- 
sion. Mr. Brown says :— 
‘After a twelve year’s residence in east- 
ern Kansas, I left that excellent state in 
the fall of 1875. 
‘‘After raising a fine crop of corn and 
seeing it destroyed by the locusts before it 
was ripe, or advanced sufficiently for gath- 
ering, I was, in common with many thous- 
and others, much discouraged. 
‘Settlers who had lost all their crops, 
with very little to subsist upon, found it 
necessary to hunt prairie chickens, and to 
sell them: for the necessaries of life, and 
many, for sport as well, made a business 
during the entire winter of killmg and 
shipping not only prairie chickens, but also 
quails and other birds. 
“I took pains to gather from commission 
merchants of Leavenworth, Kans., and of 
Kansas City and St. Joseph, Mo., and 
from the express companies, such data as 
I could at the time, and estimated that 
during the winter of 1874 the enormous 
quantity of 1000 car-loads of birds were 
