﻿OF TUE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 195 



chanffe, and accordingly the following Spring we had a practical demonstration whether 

 'the eggs deposited the previous Fall would hatch or not. Although the Fall had been 

 quite wet, with considerable rain in the Spring, and freezing and thawing in the inter- 

 val, the eggs seemed to be proof against any kind of weather, and myriads of young 

 grasshoppers hatched out as soon as the weather was warm enough. About the latter 

 part of April and tlrst of May appeared to bring forth the great bulk of them. They 

 were apparently harmless little mites at lirst, but as they grew older and larger their 

 'Voraciousness increased, and when nearly'grown their destructiveness was alarming, 

 and could only be understood by those beholding it. The young grasshoppers could 

 not fly ; but during the month of June, commencing about the first, they divested them- 

 selves completely of an outside skin, even unto the legs and feet, and came out a winged 

 insect, and soon thereafter took their flight and left us. 



In the month of September following (1807) they came down again, but not so 

 many as the previous year. They again deposited eggs, but not in such vast quantities 

 ■ {IS before. A large proportion of the grasshoppers had attached to their wings or other 

 portions small red insects, and also contained inside of them small white worms or 

 maggots. 



The Spring following (1S68), the eggs again hatched out, but they were more under 

 ■control of their various enemies, and the damage inflicted was not so much nor so 

 general as the previous season, and thej^ became infested with mites and worms before 

 they flew away in June. 



The next appearance of these pests was in August, 1874, and this invasion is still 

 fresh in the memory of nearly every one familiar with the naine of Kansas or Ne- 

 braska. 



They have their preference for certain kinds of food, but in the absence of what 

 they like best will eat almost anything. I have known them to eat the outside off of fence 

 posts and boards, and other weather-beaten timber, until it looked as if the outside had 

 been hacked or chipped off. I have had all the foliage and bark, and the ends of twigs, 

 •eaten off of young trees by them. Soon after coming down, they commence moving 

 -around, something like the foragers of an army, and soon gather and collect on such 

 things as they like best in great numbers. Almost all the ordinary crops of the farm 

 and garden seem to be desirable forage for them ; but among the things that are most 

 eagerly devoured are cabbage, onions, radishes, etc. I have frequently seen onion and 

 radish beds with nothing left but the holes in the ground where they grew, having 

 been eaten clean out. T have succeeded in raising tomato plants, but the ripe tomatoes 

 arc generally eaten. Apple and pear trees are stripped of foliage, and sometimes part 

 of the bark ; but the fruit is not often eaten, but left hanging on the trees. The foliage 

 of peach, cherry and plum trees generally escapes, but the fruit, especially peaches, 

 is generally destroyed, leaving the pits hanging on the trees. Willows and pop- 

 lars soon become stripped of foliage — the tall Lombardy poplar sometimes looking 

 lilce an immense swai-m of bees, being almost covered with grasshoppers from the top 

 to the ground. 



AVhile few vegetate things of value as food for people escaped without damage, 

 there was a very noticeable difference in the amount of injury the same varieties of 

 trees or plants sustained under different circumstances. For example : One tree or 

 plant out of a number of others of the same kind might be entirely destroyed or de- 

 voured, while all the rest would be but slightly injured, or part of the same lot would 

 be badly injured, and part but slightly. Upon examination it was always found that 

 when this difference occurred, it was due to a decline in the vitality of such trees or 

 plants as were mostly injured. It was quite noticeable that newly transplanted things 

 were more subject to being fed upon than well established ones ; that any tree in an 

 orchard of the same variety that was injured by borers, excessive bearing, or from 

 other causes, would be entirely stripped of foliage, while the others would not. And 



