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first hatched out, they did a little damage to the young wheat and 

 garden vegetables, but did no harm worth naming. Soon after hatch- 

 ing, they left the cultivated fields, and seem to have been disappearing 

 ever since. I have a 25-acre field planted in young trees, which they 

 are fond of, but they are all growing finely, and have not been in- 

 jured, though millions of the 'varmints' hatched right among them. 

 Moreover, I have cut within twenty feet of a park, where immense 

 numbers of Grasshoppers hatched, a handful (?) of orchard grass 

 two and one-half feet high, with no mark of a locust [grasshopper] 

 tooth on it. The reports from other sections, so far as I can hear, 

 are that they are disappearing without harming the crops, and nearly 

 everybody is now satisfied that they will not injure us. What becomes 

 of them all I can't tell. There are immense numbers of birds de- 

 vouring them, and the general opinion is, that they are dying off from 

 some unknown cause. The season has been rather cool and backward, 

 as in other sections." — S. T. Kelsey, in Prairie Farmer, June 15, 

 1867. 



"Atchison, Kansas, June 11, 1867. — We saw and conversed with 

 a prominent citizen of Brown county this morning, and in conver- 

 sation about the Grasshoppers he assured us, that on his farm one day 

 this week he noticed thousands of young ones that had just hatched 

 out, and in a very short time he noticed a large flock of blackbirds in 

 the same place, which he discovered had effectually cleared out all 

 the Grasshoppers, not one being left. He assures us that the prairie 

 chickens and quails are eating them, nearly as fast as they hatch out 

 on the prairie." — Atchison Free Press. 



"West Kansas, about June 13, 1867. — With us Grasshoppers have 

 at no time been so abundant, as in the more eastern portions of the 

 State, and their advent was followed by great numbers of birds 

 (mostly blackbirds), which have taken nearly all of the little pests, 

 and, at the same time, many fields of the late-sown wheat. [When 

 was it ever known that hlaclchirds devoured whole fields of young 

 wheat? — B. D. w.] The blackbirds having done their work, have 

 betaken themselves to other counties, and we find that new swarms 

 of Grasshoppers are being hatched. So far as my observation ex- 

 tends, the wet, cold weather does not affect them either for good or 

 evil, and we can only hope to be freed from them through their nat- 

 ural enemies, the birds. They are already so reduced in number, that 

 we apprehend little or no troubbi from them, unless they swarm from 

 the east or west."— iV. Y. Sem. Tribune, June 18, 1867. 



"Oskaloosa, Jefferson Co., Kansas, June 14, 1867. — We have had 

 a very backward spring. The grasshoppers hatched early in large 



