﻿164 SEVENTH ANNUAL KEPORT 



In either case, prompted by that most exigent law of hunger — 

 spurred on for very life — it rises in immense clouds in the air to seek 

 for fresh pastures where it may stay its ravenous appetite. Borne 

 along by the prevailing winds that sweep over these immense treeless 

 plains from the northwest, often at the rate of 50 or 60 miles an hour,, 

 the darkening locust clouds are soon carried into the more moist and 

 fertile country to the southeast, where, with sharpened appetites, 

 they fall upon the crops like a plague and a blight. Many of the 

 more feeble or of the more recently Hedged perish, no doubt, on the 

 way; but the main army succeeds, with favorable wind, in bridging 

 over the parched country which oilers no nourishment. The hotter 

 and drier the season, and the greater the extent of the drouth, the- 

 earlier will they be prompted to migrate, and the farther will they 

 push on to the East and South. 



The comparatively sudden change from the attenuated and dry 

 atmosphere of five to eight thousand feet or more above the sea level^ 

 to the more humid and dense atmosphere of one thousand feet above 

 that level, does not agree with them. The first generation hatched in 

 this low country is unhealthy, and the few that attain maturity do not 

 breed, but become intestate and go to the dogs. At least such is the- 

 case in our own State and in the whole of the Mississippi Valley 

 proper. As we go West or Northwest and approach nearer and nearer 

 the insect's native home, the power to propagate itself and become 

 localized, becomes, of course, greater and greater, until at last we 

 reach the country where it is found perpetually. Thus in the western 

 parts of Kansas and Nebraska the progeny from the mountain swarms 

 may multiply to the second or even third generation, and wing their 

 way in more local and feeble bevies to the country east and south. 

 Yet eventually they vanish from off the face of the earth, unle&s for- 

 tunate enough to be carried back by favorable winds to the high and 

 dry country where they flourish. That they often instinctively seek 

 to return to their native haunts is proven by the fact that they are 

 often seen flying early in the season in a northwesterly direction.* As 

 a rule, however, the winds which saved the first comers from starva- 

 tion by bearing them away from their native home, keep them and 



* Mr. Affleck, in the letter published in the Appendix, shows that they frequently taku this direction 

 in leaving Texas. Mr. S. T. Ivelsey also writes me: In the Spring of 1874, I think late in ^lay, they 

 passed over the same country (between Hutchinson and Dodge counties in Kansas) going north, flying- 

 high as before, and none of them alighting so far as I could sec or learn. They were observed by many 

 persons besides myself, but as tliey did no hann tliere was little said abont them. Mr. G. M. Dodge, of 

 Glencoe, Dodge county, Neb., {Prairie Farmer, September li), 1874,) also records their passing over 

 that place iu a northerly direction during the last of May— a date indicating that they must have been, 

 born in more Southern latitudes. See also Mr. Faulkner's letter, on page 141 of this Keport. 



