﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 141 



Our own stock was bad enough, but on the 18th of June we received a larse addi- 

 tion of flyinof ones from the South, which in some places took half of the corn, although 

 they left on the 23d of June, staying less than five days. They came with a strong 

 south wind, and while here the north wind blew, and if they were disturbed they 

 would work a little South ; but on the 23d, at 11 a. h., the south wind blew, and they 

 rose simultaneously, and most of them left us ; but our original stock not being able to 

 fly, remained. 



My experience is, that they like vegetables, in about the following order: Cabbage, 

 turnips, dog fennel and burdock, tender apple and pear leaves, especially if close to the 

 ground, as on young grafts. There are few nurserymen here who will set apple grafts if 

 we have eggs in the ground. Then wheat, corn, oats— if hard, preferred ; but they do- 

 most damage to oats by dropping the grain on the ground in cutting it off. They 

 relish grapes about the same as oats ; but the hydrocyanic acid in peach leaves is too- 

 much for them, and I have not seen one touched. 



As I am glad to see you doing so good a work so well, if I can furnish you any 

 information it will give me pleasure. 



During this year, 1869, and the two following years, as will be 

 seen from what is said further on under the head of "injuries by other 

 non-migratory species," many of the common locusts of the country 

 were unusually numerous and destructive; and the reports of their 

 injuries must not be confounded with those of the Kocky Mountain 

 species. Mr. Cyrus Thomas (J./;?. Ent. II, p. 82,) reports finding this 

 species, in June, 1869, around St. Joseph, Mo. He says : " We arrived 

 very early in the morning, and then they appeared to be somewhat 

 torpid ; yet when those in the grass were disturbed by the hogs, which 

 were feeding upon them, they hopped about quite briskly. Swarms 

 of them, as I was informed, had been flying over that section for a 

 week previous to our arrival." 



In 1870, what was probably this last species, swept down upon the 

 country around Algona, Iowa, and in 1871 the progeny "hatched by 

 myriads till after the first of June," and left about the first of July.* 

 In parts of Utah and Colorado their injuries were also reported during 

 this year. 



In 1872 again they did some harm in parts of Kansas, for Mr. Albert 

 Cooper, of Beloit, Kans., wrote me (September 1, 1872): "They came 

 down upon us a few days ago, and are now eating up everything 

 green." Mr. J. D. Putnam, who spent the Summer of 1872 in the Rocky 

 Mountains, also wrote me "that spreius wsls quite numerous in the 

 valley of the Troublesome River." 



THE INVASION OF 1873. 



During the years of 1873 and 1874, we have had a repetition, in a 

 great measure, of the years 1866 and 1867. The invasion of 1873 was 

 pretty general over a strip of country running from the northern parts 

 of Colorado and southern parts of Wyoming, through Nebraska and 

 Dakota, to the southwestern counties of Minnesota, and northwestern 



• Western Rural, Chicago, September 26, 1874. 



