﻿OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 61 



During the second week of Julj^ these home-bred locusts took wing, and it is 

 interesting to note that they instinctively went in a north and northwest course, just 

 as the fledged insects had done a few weeks earlier in the season, the previous year, 

 from Missouri, and the adjacent country to the west. Numerous dispatches to St. Paul, 

 Minneapolis and other papers, show conclusively that the general direction taken was 

 northwest, and that when the wind was unfavorable, the locusts awaited a change. 



The exodus to the northwest was, however, by no means so general as from the 

 more southern country the year before, and, as I learn through Mr. Whitman, many of 

 the insects remained and commenced laying early in July, within two weeks after they 

 had commenced to fly, and not many miles from their hatching grounds. This has 

 never occurred in our own State, and simply indicates what I have in these Eeports 

 •maintained, viz : that Minnesota is so much nearer the native home of the insect that 

 the species can sustain itself for a longer time there. 



The swarms that left early in July returned, did more or less damage, and toward 

 the end of the month left in numbers in a southerly direction. Some, however, re- 

 mained. About the 6th of August fresh swarms came from Dakota, having been heard 

 of on the 23d of July as passing over Gen. Crook's aripoy. These, as I learn from Mr. 

 John C. Wise of The Weekly Revieio, Mankato, by letter of August 22, pushed contin- 

 uously to the southeast, and reached as far east as they were ever known to do, or as 

 far as the southwest corner of Dodge county. 



The Pioneer Press and Jribime of the 19th remarked : 



They appear to have left the southwestern counties and moving northward, have 

 settled down on strips of land, to a width of 65 miles, extending from the upper part 

 of Nicollet county to Minnesota Falls ; south to a line drawn between these points 

 there are but few hoppers reported, and they are not doing any damage — but they 

 extend northward up to Otter Tail county and beyond. 



They were found at intervals over that whole country, depositing eggs, doing 

 much damage in some localities and scarcely any to others. They came too late to do 

 much damage to the principle crops, which were mostly harvested. If we study the 

 reports from the south and southwestern parts of the State, published in the journal 

 aforesaid, we find that from one-half to two-thirds of a crop of the small grains had 

 been harvested on an average in the worst visited section, and drouth and other insects, 

 such as the Hessian-fly had much to do with the poor yield. The eggs were exten- 

 sively destroyed not only by the Silky Mite, but by the Anthomyia Egg-parasite, and 

 the Ichneumon grub, which I shall describe further on. It was further noticeable that 

 the insects came down with the northwest winds, and that when the wind changed to 

 the south, as it did for several subsequent days, few of the insects returned with it. 

 The great bulk of them were restless and remained till the winds shifted again to the 

 north and northeast. Another noticeable feature was that the eggs were quite gen- 

 erally laid in very moist ground, as there was abundant rain about the middle of 

 August. Throughout the month of September the insects were moving mostly south 

 and southeast, spreading, but very gradually, further and further east. Many of them 

 remained and continued laying till frost. 



The fact, that in their previous invasions into Minnesota the locusts had never 

 penetrated farther east in Blue Earth and Nicollet counties than the Minnesota river, 

 led there, to the advancement of a theory that they are peculiar to and thrive only in 

 an alkali region. This is the character of the region west of the Blue Earth river, 

 across which they, seemingly, had never ventured to any extent, and certainly had 

 never prospered. 



In answer to an inquiry on the subject last August from Mr. Wise, I stattd my 



