﻿178 SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT 



the sfrasshoppers almost covering some plants, where they have taken hold of a leaf or 

 stalk, and clasped it, with a dead embrace ; many others'fall to the ground to die, too 

 weak to rise again. In a half day's examination, wliere they were very tliick, we 

 failed to find more than two grasshoppers not so attacked, and this was not local, for a 

 distance of thirty miles across the country they were found similarly affected. 



The Anonymous Tachina-fly. — Our Locust, like so many other in- 

 sects, is also subject to the attacks of certain two-winged flies much 

 resembling the common House-fly, but larger. One is the very same 

 TiSichm^ifiy ( Tac/iina anom/jna) which I have bred from a number 

 of other insects.* I first reared this fly from specimens of the Rocky 

 Mountain Locust sent me by Jos. C. Shattuck, Vice Prest. of the 

 Union Colony, Greeley, Col., who wrote, July 14, 1873, as follows of its 

 work : 



* * Also, I will saj' that the grasshoppers which a month since seriouslj' 

 threatened to devour every green thing, have met with a mortal foe and been slain by 

 millions. (Don't think " millions " too large a word.) Very few have " taken to them- 

 selves wings and flown away," as heretofore, but lie dead in the fields they lately rav- 

 aged. A small fly pierces them and deposits an e^giohile on the whig, (or on the jump) 

 and like Herod of old " they are eaten ot worms and give up the ghost." 



The following items undoubtedly refer to the same insect: 



A Grasshopper-Exterminating Fly. — It seems that the grasshoppers that are so 

 destructive to vegetation in many places in the central portion of the continent, are 

 likely to find an enemy which threatens their rapid destruction. The Deer Lodge Ijide- 

 pe7idetit says that a fly has made its appearance, closely resembling the common house- 

 fly, but much larger, and ot a gray, mottled color, which deposits its eggs under the 

 wings of the Grasshopper. The egg is enclosed in aglutnious substance, which secures 

 it in its position until the worm is matured [embryon developed.] It then penetrates 

 the bodj'^ of the Grasshopper, which speedily dies. The worm then burrows in the 

 ground, and at the end of seventeen days comes forth a fly, ready to again commence 

 the work of destruction. Mr. Wm. Walker, of Dempsey Creek, informs the Independ- 

 ent that twice during the past Summer the grasshoppers threatened to destroy his 

 crops, but the flies killed them so rapidly that they did him but little damage. As the 

 grasshoppers were killed before depositing their eggs, it is generally believed that this 

 plague is ended in the Deer Lodge Valley. — [Published in several Montana papers in 

 Summer of 1874. 



A great many of the locusts seemed to be punctured on the back, and on pulling 

 their heads ofl' after death (many were found dead) from 1 to 3 ordinary looking mag- 

 gots would be found. Many farmers fear it might be an introduction of a new plague. 

 May not this gentleman with his little gimlet in time prove the destroyer of the hateful 

 Locust? — [R,. P. C, Wilson, Platte City, Mo., in private letter. 



I saw a hopper kicking about as if he could hardly move ; I pulled him to pieces 

 and found that he contairicd a footless grub, half an inch in length. In a short time 

 jnore were procured, placed in a covered tumbler, where, in a little more than two 

 weeks, the grubs changed to Tachina flies, very much resembling the common house- 

 flies, * * When we remember what an enormous ntimber of eggs (fly-blows) a fl}^ 

 will lay and that each, in about a month, will be a perfect fly, it is seen that it would 

 take but a few generations to clean out an army of grasshoppers — [Oscar J. Strong, 

 IJolfe, Pocahontas countj', Iowa, in Wester7i Farmer, Feb., 1809. 



Mr. Byers, in speaking of the locusts hatching in Colorado in 

 1865, {loc. cit.) saj's: "That upon attaining about half their full size, 

 they were attacked by a fly, which, stinging them in the back between 

 the root of the wings, deposited one or more eggs, which produced a 



* See Rcpts. 4, p. 129 :mil 5, p. l.!3. 



