﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 119 



It was generally supposed that evergreens would escape the rav- 

 ages of the young insects, but wherever these were abundant, hemlock, 

 arbor vitse, the different pines, and especially the Norway spruce, for 

 which they showed a predilection, were stripped. The red cedar 

 more often escaped. Wild prairie, especially that which was low, 

 would be eaten down less closely than other grasses, and oats more 

 often escaped than other cereals. Blue grass was sometimes killed 

 out, but more generally not, and corn was eaten down so often and so 

 deeply into the ground that it was frequently destroyed. Potatoes 

 were not killed by being eaten down and very generally made a 

 crop alter the insects left, without replanting. This was especially the 

 case where planted deep and where the vines as they grew were at 

 first kept covered with earth, which they can be with impunity. The 

 blossoms and stems of peas were left after the leaves were stripped, and 

 parsnips sometimes remained untouched. All other vegetables were 

 swept off. Of wild plants. Milkweed {Asclepias) and Dogbane {Apocy- 

 num) were little to their taste, and only taken when all else was de- 

 stroyed ; an occasional Salvia tficliosteininoides and Yernonia novce- 

 loracensis would also be left in the general ruin ; but the plant of all 

 others that enjoyed immunity from the omnivorous creatures was the 

 Amarantus Blitum^ a low, creeping glossy-leaved herb, lately intro- 

 duced into the State. I found this plant unmolested even where the in- 

 sects were so hard pushed lor food that they were feeding on each 

 other and on dead leaves, the bark of trees, lint of fences, etc., and 

 where they were so thick hiding amid its leaves that fifty to a hundred 

 occured'to the square foot. The immunity of the plant is the more 

 remarkable since the other species of the genus do not escape. 



CONTRAST IN SUMJIER AND FALL. 



By the end of July the whole ravaged district began to wear a 

 smiling and promising aspect, in strong contrast to the desolation of 

 a month before. In Missouri, in the non-ravaged districts, the wheat 

 harvest was interfered with by the exceptionally heavy rains that 

 prevailed at the time ; but in most other parts of the country within 

 the locust district the reports were most encouraging. In Minnesota 

 the crops in the counties ravaged in 1874 yielded well. In Dakota the 

 crops of wheat, oats and barley were reported, around Yankton, as 

 promising to be the best ever harvested. In Colorado everything 

 looked splendid, after the locusts left. The people of Iowa and Kan- 

 sas, in general, were jubilant over their brightened and encouraging 

 prospects, though, as in Missouri, the heavy rains retarded and some- 

 what reduced the grain harvest. In Indian Territory the wheat crop 

 was reported as the largest ever gathered in that part of the country. 

 In August the contrast became still more gratifying, and in our own 



