REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST. 181 



exceptionally dry, and there was no green thing in the country for the young locusts to 

 eat except the settlers' grain crops. The injury of this attack was augmented by the 

 fact that from lack of spring rains a large proportion of the seed grain had failed to 

 germinate, and, consequently, all crops were very thin on the ground. 



I visited the infested localities, in company with Mr. Hugh McKellar, Chief Clerk 

 of the Manitoba Department of Agriculture, and drove with him to all the places at 

 which it was known that locusts had been observed. None of the farmers, with the 

 exception of Mr. John Scott, remembered seeing locusts in injurious numbers before. 

 Considerable damage was done on the farms of Mr. J. H. Urie, Messrs. Leonard and 

 Robert Sawyer, Mr. John Scott and Mr. D. S. McLeod. The farm of the last named is 

 at Lennox, the most westerly point visited ; this is just round the spur of the Turtle 

 Mountains from Deloraine. I was unable to visit some farms said to be infested near 

 Boissevain, but through the kindness of Mr. Arthur S. Barton, of the Dingle, Bois- 

 sevain, and Mr. Charles A. Sankey, of Boissevain, I was kept well informed as to th3 

 visitation and provided with specimens for examination. On ray return to Ottawa and 

 at the time when the farmers would have finished their harvesting and be at liberty to 

 plough their land, I prepared the following article upon this important suV>ject, and so 

 that it might reach as many farmers as possible, sent it to the Farmer's Advocate, which 

 has a very large circulation and which published it both in its Manitoba and its 

 general edition. Similar articles were also published in the Weekly Star of Montreal 

 and two or three in the Winni2)eg Free Press. 



THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST. 



During last June notices appeared in the newspapers that injury was being done 



by grasshoppers or locusts in southern Manitoba. These reports naturally caused much 



anxiety among the old settlers who had been in the 



Prairie Province at the time of the serious locust 



depredations during 1868, 1870, 1872, and 1874. 



By instruction of the Honourable Sydney Fisher, 



and at the request of the Hon. Thomas Green way, I 



IP- 1A mu T» , TIT i. • T I. visited the localities reported to be infested in the 

 Fig. 10. — The Rocky Mountain Locust. , . . ^.ti i--.i • ^ ^^ pa 



beginning or J uly and again m the middle or August. 



The reports of injuries to growing crops were found to be correct, and the locust 



which was doing the injury was, as in the former invasions referred to, the Hateful or 



Rocky Mountain Locust {Caloptenns spretus, Uhler). 



The exact identification of the species was in this case a matter of no little 

 importance, for it is well known that, although there are many kinds of locusts in the 

 west, none of them are to be feared as crop destroyers to anything like the same extent 

 as the above named, which has exceptional powers of flight and is gregarious in its 

 habits. As is usually the case in such matters, when conviction on this point involved 

 a good deal of extra labour, some farmers were slow to believe that such an ordinary- 

 looking insect could be so serious an enemy as was claimed by those who recognized in 

 the grasshopper of this year their old enemy of the early seventies, and doubts were 

 being cast on the correctness of the identification. This question was at once decided 

 upon catching a few specimens near Deloraine. To one who has studied these insects it 

 is, of course, just as easy to distinguish the Rocky Mountain Locust from its near allies 

 as it is for a farmer to tell wheat from rye, barley or oats. 



A good use of this special knowledge was made by Mr. John Scott, who has lived 

 a few miles south of Deloraine for many years. He noticed a swarm of the locusts to 

 alight on his farm last autumn, and this spring warned his neighbours to be on their 

 guard and take some steps to protect their crops, similar to those he himself adopted. 

 As soon as the grasshoppers hatched he spread rows of dry straw across the field where 

 they were most numerous ; the young hoppers gathered into these at night in large 



