18 
caused much damage by eating the foliage as fast as it grows on the 
young trees. I found cases when it became necessary to cut fields of 
oats green and convert the crop into hay, the hoppers having taken the 
blades and heads from a good part of the crop on the borders of the 
fields. They did not appear in sufficient numbers early enough to 
materially injure the first cutting of alfalfa and clover, of which large 
quantities are produced, more than to dencde the stalks of a part of 
the foliage, but I saw fields cut early in which the hoppers kept 
ahead of the second crop notwithstanding free and careful irrigation, 
so that the fields were as brown and bare on the 7th of August as they 
had been the 1st of July, when the first crop was removed and stacked 
From the best information obtainable I could not learn that these 
locusts were from swarms invading this region from any outside terri- 
tory, but were of the nonmigratory species which breed from year to 
year in the valley. 
The Boise River takes its origin in the mountains of central Idaho, 
entering the Snake River Plains about 10 or 12 miles above Boise City 
through a canyon, and takes a course nearly westward along the low 
foothills flanking the higher mountains of the central plateau of the 
State for a distance of 25 to 30 miles, when it makes a detour towards 
the west across the plains, entering Snake River about 50 miles from 
its effluence from the mountains. 
These foothills rising gradually from the edge of the great arid Snake 
River Plains to an elevation of from 200 to 2,000 feet have from time 
immemorial been the favorite hatching ground of a number of species 
of locusts which frequently become so numerous that they overrun the 
adjacent valleys and cause great destruction to the crops of the “ ran- 
cher” who may be so unfortunate as to be in their path. Settlers have 
been in this valley now for about thirty years, and it appears that 
periodically the locusts invade their farms for a time and then disap- 
pear for seven or eight years and then increase again. 
Some of the more imaginative ones have conceived the theory that 
the locusts are, like the cicadas, periodic, and that the eggs lie in the 
ground for a certain period of about eight or nine years, when they hatch 
jn great number, again, after a certain time, to deposit eggs and disap- 
pear as before. It has taken considerable argument to convince them 
that this is not the true theory of the periodic invasion. 
It seems that both locusts and crickets have the same periodic char- 
acter, following each other closely in their time of appearance, flourish- 
ing for a few seasons and then nearly disappearing, the periods of fre- 
quency being about ten years, 1872, 1883, and the present year being 
notably years of abundance. 
Thave been unable to learn of any well authenticated flights of locusts 
into this valley from other sections, although there are traditions and 
rumors of such, but whence, I could get no definite information, though 
more intelligent persons with whom I talked told me that they hateh in 
