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of from fifty to eighty feet from the ground, after which they would 

 continue at about this heiglit until lost to view. The migration was not 

 continuous, there being intervals of from ten to twenty minutes, during 

 which time scarcely a grasshopper would be seen on the wing. They 

 would then start up again, and in a comparatively short time thousands 

 of them could be seen upon the wing in every direction. This migra- 

 tion ceased at about half past three o'clock in the afternoon. Scarcely a 

 single winged specimen remained where there had been thousands of 

 them before the migration began. It was feared that the migration was 

 only temporary, and that they would return again at the changingof the 

 wind, but this had not happened at the time of leaving this district 

 about three days later. This migration occurred in the locality where 

 these grasshoppers were the most numerous. It was reported that a 

 similar migration, but on a much smaller scale, had also taken place in 

 one or two of the other infested districts. 



Other kinds of grasshoppers occurring in this district. — Associated 

 with the destructive species were five other kinds of grasshoppers, 

 none of which were at all abundant. The species most frequently met 

 with was the small, red-legged species, Melanoplus femur-rubrum 

 DeG. ; this was observed in all stages excepting the egg, but there 

 was scarcely one specimen of this species to one thousand of the 

 americana. The four other species observed in the infested district 

 were the following: Dissosteira Carolina Linn.; Chimerocephala viridi- 

 fasciata DeG.; Encoptolophus sordidusJ^wxm^.', and Mippiscus tubercu- 

 latus Beauv. The first of these was only occasionally met with, while 

 the others were rarely seen. 



Cause of the undue increase. — Mr. W. P. Moomaw informed the writer 

 that the species which occasioned so much damage the present season 

 has infested that district as long as he can remember. He has been 

 familiar with its appearance from boyhood, but it had never appeared 

 in destructive numbers in that locality prior to last autumn, at which 

 time it was present in unusual numbers in his orchard, attacking the 

 leaves of his apple trees as well as gnawing large cavities in the grow- 

 ing fruit. At the same time it also occurred in a neighboring corn- 

 field, which, in a comparatively short time, became almost completely 

 defoliated. It was the almost universal opinion of persons living in 

 the infested district that the past winter was the mildest one they had 

 experienced within the recollection of the proverbial " oldest inhabi- 

 tant; "and this, taken in conjunction with something unusually favor- 

 able to the rapid increase of the grasshoppers last season, is doubtless 

 responsible for their appearing in such large numbeis the present 

 season. It has already been stated above that, in all probability, none 

 of the individuals of this species deposit eggs the same season that 

 tliey acquire wings, but i)ass the winter in some sheltered place and 

 deposit their eggs early in the following summer; it therefore follows 

 that any condition of the weather during the winter season that is 



