27 



GENERAL NOTES. 



TWO LOCAL OUTBREAKS OF LOCUSTS. 



Two locust occniTenccs worthy of note have come to our notice this 

 season, one in Utah and another in Louisiana. 



Under date of April 29, Mr. James B. Darton, of ISTephi City, Utah, 

 wrote the Secretary of Agriculture that millions of grasslioppers were at 

 that time hatching out on the borders of the grain tieldsin the vicinity 

 of JSTephi City. At our request and to save time Mr. Bruner, our 

 agent at Lincoln, Nebr., took up the correspondence and wrote us 

 May 17 that he had received from Mr. Darton eight or ten speci- 

 mens of the locust. These, however, from having been treated like 

 botaiiical specimens, and evidently put through a press, could not 

 be specifically determined. They were the young of Melano[)lus, but 

 nn'ght belong to any one of five species. A second lot, which Avas re- 

 ipiestfcd to be forwarded alive in a tin box, was reported on June 5 by 

 Mr. Bruner, but still left us much in the dark as to the exact species 

 doing the injury. The first lot seemed to be composed of at 1 east three 

 species, M. bicittatns, M. spretus, and M. femurrubrum or M. devastator; 

 but tlie other sending, consisting of a quarter pint of decaying pui)ie, 

 were nearly all Camnula peUncUJa, and just what other species were 

 with them can not be said. In this outbreak several species were evi- 

 dently united in the work of devastation. For several years back 

 various causes have been working together to produce the injurious 

 numbers appearing this year, but no great damage is to be looked for 

 at the present in this region. 



In Louisiana the species which occurred was Melanopliis cinerens, re- 

 garding which the Hon. T. J. Bird, Commissioner of tne State Bureau 

 of Agriculture, at Baton Eouge, wrote us June 8, mailing specimens. 

 The damage done was slight and consisted in the leaves of young cotton 

 plants being eaten. This is a local uou migratory species, all of which, 

 though liable to multiply to such an extent as to cause some little alarm, 

 seldom really do any appreciable damage. Probably the beat method 

 of treatment is by the use of the bran-arsenic mash, concerning which 

 several paragrai)hs will be found in the Annual Beport of the Depart- 

 ment for 1885, pages 300 and 301. 



TENT CATERPILLAR IN ARKANSAS. 



Mr. J. W. Bland, of War Eagle Mills, Benton County, Ark., has sent 

 us a specimen of the moth of the American Tent-caterpillar {Clisiocampa 

 amcrlcana) with its eggs, which he found the moth in the act of de- 

 ])()siting on a peach limb on the 8th of June. We place this on record 

 as giving an idea of the time of egg laying of this species in that part 

 of the country. These eggs were fur the second brood, which it is not 



