﻿OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 173- 



Even in 1874 much injury by them was reported in the Mississippi 

 Valley and eastward, and a few extracts will suffice to indicate how 

 numerous they often were : 



The grasshoppers destroyed four acres of my wheat last Fall ; ate and destroyed my 

 timothy twice ; sowed the g^round again this Spring, but as there are still plenty of 

 hoppers there is not much hope for a stand. —[Letter extract from G. Pauls, Eureka, 

 Mo., Nov. 10, 1874. 



Some of our good friends in Suffolk county, Virginia, were unduly excited this 

 Summer over the idea that the AVestern destructive grasshopper, Caloptenus spretus of 

 Uhler, had found its way to the " sacred soil of Virginia." There was no denying the 

 fact that myriads of grasshoppers were devouring nearly "every green thing," even 

 settling ontlie trunks and limbs of trees, and gnawing the bark in a most unkind man- 

 ner ; and as it appeared to be something altogether foreign to the locality, of course, 

 it must be the western pest. Specimens were forwarded to us, however, and a glance 

 was sufficient to show us there was no need for alarm, as it was quite a common species 

 in this part of the United States, and though rather too plentiful in this particular 

 locality, would not spread or become the terror that its western distant relative has 

 proved. The insect is known as the Acridium Ameriea7ium, and is of large size, often 

 measuring over two and a half inches in length. — [C. K. Dodge, in Rural Caroliniatiy. 

 November, 1874. 



In short, during hot and dry years, which are favorable to the 

 multiplication of crickets and locusts, more or less injury is done, in- 

 all parts of the country by species indigenous to the different locali- 

 ties, but which in ordinary seasons do not attract any special atten- 

 tion. In every case, however, except in the mountain regions where 

 the Eastern and the Western long- winged species are at home, or the 

 country to which they migrate ; the injury is caused by non-migra- 

 ting species. 



The principal depredator in such cases, in the Mississippi Valley,, 

 is the witle-spread Red-legged Locust, already described and illustra- 

 ted, (p. 125) and so often confounded with the true migrating Rocky 

 Mountain species. The next most injurious is the Differential Locust 

 {Caloptenus diiferentialis. Walk., Fig. 33), a species at once distin- 

 [Fig. 33.] ^^ guished, in the more typ- 



ical specimens, from the 

 preceding, not only by its- 

 larger size, but by its 

 brighter yellow and green 

 DiFFEiiENTiAL LOCUST. 'colors. The head and tho- 



rax are olive brown, and the front wings very much of the same color,- 

 and without other marks have a brownish shade at base, the hind 

 wings being tinged with green; the hind thighs are bright yellow,, 

 especially below, with the four black marks as in spretus^ and the 

 hind shanks are yellow with black spines, and a black ring near the 

 base. JSext in injuriousness comes the Two-striped Locust {Calop- 

 tenus hivittatus^ Say, Fig. 34,) also a larger species, of a dull, olive- 



