﻿174 ■ SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT 



green color, the hind thighs conspicuously yellow beneath, and with 

 two yellow lines extending from above the eyes along each side 

 [Fig. 34.]^ Qf tjjg thorax superiorly, and 



thence, more distinctly on the 

 front wings, narrowing and ap- 

 proaching toward their tips, when 

 closed. All these species belong 

 to the same genus as our Rocky 

 Two-sTRii'ED LocisT. Mouutaiu Locust, and, except in 



being unable to sustain flight agree with it in habit. 



There are several locusts belonging to other genera which are 

 common over large areas from the Atlantic to the Mississippi ; and 

 some of them, belonging to the genera Acridium and (Edijpoda have 

 relatively longer wings than the common Red-legged Locust, and con- 

 sequently greater power of flight. Yet they are seldom as injurious as 

 the short-winged Oalopterii just enumerated, and the swarming of 

 Acridium Americanum (our largest species), as described in the para- 

 graph from the Rural Carolinian is quite exceptional. 



ENEMIES AND PARASITES. 



It is fortunate for man that, as in the case of most noxious insects, 

 this locust is not without its numerous enemies. Chickens, turkeys 

 and hogs devour immense quantities, and are happy during years of 

 locust invasion, or whenever these insects abound. Prairie chickens 

 and quails devour them with avidity, and even hunt for their eggs ; 

 swallows and blackbirds pursue them unrelentingly ; the little snow 

 birds devour great quantities of eggs when these are brought to the 

 surface by the freezing and thawing of the ground ; and the same 

 may be said of almost all birds inhabiting the Western country in 

 Winter; for in the crops of warblers, plovers, snipe and other birds 

 killed by the telegraph wires in the vicinity of Lawrence, Kansas, 

 my friend, G. F. Gaumer, found these eggs last Winter. The Shrike, or 

 Butcher-bird, impales them on to thorns and other pointed substances ; 

 and a number of other birds, as well as reptiles, e. g. toads, frogs and 

 snakes, least upon them. But by far the most efi'ective helps in weak- 

 ening the vast armies of locusts, are the parasitic insects, albeit their 

 work is perhaps less noticeable and less appreciated. Passing over 

 the few, like certain species of Digger Wasps, belonging to the genus 

 iScolia, which occasionally bury a few specimens as provision for their 

 young; the ferocious Asilus-flies, which occasionally pounce upon a 

 specimen and suck out its juices, and the omnivorous ant, which is 



