﻿OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



103 



miles, even if they continued to travel in one direction from the time 

 of hatching till maturity. They travel only during the hotter portions 

 of the day, say six hours on an average ; and their unfledged existence 

 terminates in from six to eight, say seven weeks. It is very easy to 

 calculate from these facts that if they continued in one direction from 

 the time they hatch until they acquire wings, they would not extend 

 thirty miles. In reality, however, they do not travel every day, and 

 where lood is abundant they scarcely travel at all. Moreover, as just 

 shown, they do not commence traveling till after the first molt, and 

 they do not go continually in a particularly eastern direction, but in 

 all directions. 



We have already seen that the winged insects took a northwest 

 direction, and none flew to the east. Yet a few stragglers were car- 

 ried as far as the centre of the State by being swept into the Missouri 

 and drifted on logs and chips during the annual rise of that river in 

 July; fori received specimens of the genuine spretus thus brought 

 as far as Rocheport in Boone county, from Mr. Robert A. Caskie of that 

 place. 



NOT LED BY "KINGS" OR "QUEENS." 



The idea that the young hoppers were led in their marches by so- 

 called "kings" or ''queens" was very prevalent last Spring. It is, 

 however, quite unfounded. Certain large locusts belonging to the 

 genera JLcn'iZzi^?/! and GiJdipoda hiheindiie in the full grown, winged 



[Fig. 40.] 



American Ackidium. 



state, and not in the egg state, like the Rocky Mountain species. 

 Always with us, their presence was simply more manifest last Spring, 

 when the face of the earth was bare. Hopping with the others or 

 falling into ditches with them, they gave rise to this false notion, and 

 it is an interesting fact as showing how the same circumstances at 

 times give rise to similar erroneous ideas in widely separate parts of 

 the world, that the same idea prevails in parts of Europe and Asia. 



The two species which are most often thus found with the young 

 locusts and supposed from their size and conspicuity to be guides, are 



