16 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
found in Alabama feeding on egg-plants and potatoes,-.and also on the 
Fig. 30. Solanum Carolinense. In Alabama it was said to be espe- 
cially destructive to the foliage of the egg-plant. The gene- 
ral appearance of these two insects, in size, color, and mark- 
ings, is so much the same that it is difficult for a person 
not an entomologist to distinguish them at first sight. 
The real potato bug, however, has ten stripes on the wing- 
cases, while the false one has only eight, or, in Mr. Walsh’s own words, 
‘the difference between D. 10-lineata and juncta is as follows: In D. 
juncta the second and third stripes are always united behind, and some- 
times before, and the edges of all the stripes have a single groove and a 
single row of punctures, while the legs are rufous, with a black spot in 
the middle of the front of all the thighs.” 
The Rocky Mountain grasshopper, Caloptenus spretus, (Uhler,) has been 
very destructive in the far West, and we have received numerous letters 
from Utah and elsewhere describing their ravages. This insect resem- 
bles our commonest species in the Eastern States, the red-legged grass- 
hopper, Caloptenus femur-rubrum, (Degeer,) in size, shape, color, and 
ornamentation, but it has much longer wing-covers and wings in propor- 
tion to its size. Rev. Cyrus Thomas, who has made this order his espe- 
cial study, and who has observed these insects in their native wilds, 
states that it is quite a distinct species from the femur-rubrum, and that 
Fig. 31. when the Rocky Mountain species makes its 
migrations to the low lands it frequently 
alights amid the common eastern species, 
— <5) ae also living there, but never mixes with them 
c Mal RA. in the least, and when the migratory species 
\ leaves the place they fly away in masses 
“+ without taking any of the common species 
with them. These insects fly in nambers so immense and to such dis- 
tances, and breed in such out-of-the-way and sterile places—generally 
coarse-gravelly table lands where vegetation is very scant—that, as yet, 
no remedy has been discovered, at least when the insects are in the 
perfect state and furnished with powerful wings. A correspondent in 
Utah states that fire and water have been tried with but little effect, and 
that he despairs of ever getting entirely rid of them. When in the 
larva state and incapable of flight, they may be destroyed in limited 
numbers by rolling the land with heavy rollers, or setting fire to the 
grass in circles in the spring; but this would be impracticable on a large 
scale, as the first legions that produce the second brood, doing the great- 
est damage, are mostly bred in waste places where only Indians and 
wild animals roam. <A planter in Texas writes in a Louisiana paper: 
“As soon as the grasshopper has laid its eggs let the planters plow - 
their fields and turn the soil over and the eggs under a deep layer of 
soil. This layer of soil will crush the eggs, and thus destroy the spring 
crop of grasshoppers. This experiment has been made on small spots 
of ground where myriads of eggs were deposited, and not a grasshopper 
came from under those layers of earth that covered the eggs.” This no 
doubt would be very good to protect certain fields or gardens from the 
injuries inflicted by this insect when in the 
larva and pupa state, but it would be no 
protection whatever from the winged hordes 
that migrate later in the season. ‘The com- 
mon red-legged locust or grasshopper, C. 
Jemurrubrum, was very destructive last 
year to fruit trees, grass, &c. In parts of 
