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EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



one part of the country is not unfrequently rejected as poisonous in another section^ 

 We use many things to-day that were considered worthless or even poisonous by our 

 forefathers. Prejudice wields a most powerful influence in all our actions. It is said that 

 the Irish during the famine of lS-57, would rather starve than eat our corn bread ; and 

 if what I have here written shall, in the future, induce some of our Western people to 

 profit by the hint, and avoid suffering from hunger or actual starvation, I shall not 

 have written in vain. 



FALSE OPINIONS AND PREDICTIONS. 



I have already alluded to the fact that the idea entertained by- 

 some people, and particularly promulgated by Mr. Z. S. Ragan, viz. : 

 that our Rocky Mountain Locust comes originally from Asia, via 

 Behrings Strait, has no foundation whatever in fact {ante^ p. 118 ;) and 

 under this head I desire to reassert and affirm that the belief that the 

 species will continue to move eastward, is just as unfounded. This 

 last belief is more generally entertained than the other, and the fol- 

 lowing from an editorial in the St. Louis Repuhlican of May 25, 1875> 

 is an example of the many expressions of it : 



As near as can be judged from the observations of last year, the grasshoppers da 

 not move more than one hundred and fifty miles during the season. That is to say the- 

 hatching locality this year is about one hundred and fifty miles to the eastward of last 

 year's hatching place on an average, and those who have observed their habits think 

 that they will move across the continent at this rate, keeping within a belt of territory 

 bounded generally by the 37th parallel on the south and the 41st on the north. If this- 

 theory be correct, they will hatch next year in the counties immediately west of the 

 meridian of St. Louis; the next in the eastern counties of Illinois, the next on the 

 western borders of Ohio and so on. 



UNNECESSARY ALARM CAUSED BY OTHER SPECIES . 



[Fig. 45.] 



Thk Clumsy Locdst. 



The sense of apprehension of further danger 

 is great in a community that has suffered se- 

 verely from disaster whatsoever, and locusts 

 which under ordinary circumstances would 

 attract no attention were quite frequently 

 looked upon with alarm and suspicion during 

 the year. Mr. E. W. Kruze, of Sedalia, sent 

 me a very large, short-winged locust found in 

 his locality last Fall, with an inquiry as to its 

 name, and whether there was any connection 

 between its appearance and the late invasion 

 of spretus. The same species was also sent 

 from the same locality by Mr. Geo. Husmann. 

 It is the BracJiypeplus magnus of entomolo- 

 gists, and may be popularly called the Clumsy 

 Locust. It is one of our largest and clum- 

 siest species, incapable of flight, and never 

 doing serious injury. It is common on the 

 plains of west Kansas and Colorado, but has 



