﻿118 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



siderably shorter and smaller, the hnid pair livid, with only rafely a touch of black 

 at base, and with the pale spot obsolete. It presents in facta marked contrast to the- 

 pupa of spretus. In the early stages, femur-rubrmn is distino^uished from Atlanis by no- 

 very constant characters, except the generally paler, less livid and greener hue. 



As the idea prevails among many of our farmers that our Rocky 

 Mountain Locust is identical with the devastating species of the Old 

 World, and Mr. Z. S. Ragan, in an otherwise excellent essay, read at 

 the last meeting of our State Horticultural Society, gives it as his- 

 opinion that our locusts '' came over from Asia via Behring's Strait, to- 

 British America, thence extended from time to time over Washington 

 Territory, Oregon, California, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Da- 

 kota, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Indian 

 Territory, Nebraska, part of Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and Wiscon- 

 sin ;" it may be well to insist here that there is no foundation whatever 

 for such an opinion, and that spretus is a purely American species,, 

 occurring in no part of Europe or Asia. 



EXPERIENCE IN THE SPRING. 



Having already spoken of the desolate aspect which the ravaged 

 country wore toward the end of June, it will suffice in this connectioa 

 to give a few of the more interesting experiences. It is recorded in 

 Europe that few things, not even water, stop the armies of the young- 

 locusts when on the march, and Dongingk relates having seen them 

 swim over the Dnjestr for a stretch of 1^ German miles, and in layers- 

 7 or 8 inches thick.* We have had similar experience with our own 

 species. Mr. James Hanway, of Lane, Kansas, informs me that the 

 young last Spring crossed the Potawotomie Creek, which is about four 

 rods wide, by millions; while Mr. Z. S. Ragan, of Independence, told 

 me that the Big and Little Blues, tributaries of the Missouri, one 

 emptying into it above and the other below his place, the one about 

 one hundred feet wide at its mouth, and the other not so wide, were 

 crossed at numerous places by the moving armies, which would march 

 down to the water's edge, and commence jumping in, one upon an- 

 other, till they would pontoon the stream, so as to effect a crossing. 



A neighbor also informed him that two of these mighty armies 

 met, one moving east and the other west, opposite his farm, on the 

 river bluff, and each turning their course north, and down the bluff, 

 and coming to a perpendicular ledge of rock twenty-five or thirty feet 

 high, passed over in a sheet, apparently six or seven inches thick, and 

 causing a roaring noise similar to a cataract of water. 



* Koppen, loc. ci<., p. 43. 



