﻿84 NINTH ANNUAL REPORT 



The advent of Kansas o^rasshoppers, over Sunday and until Monday eveninof, in 

 great numbers throuo-hout the city, is a most remarkible incident. They were found 

 early Sunday morning, and left, as suddenly as they came, on Monday evening. 



A shower of mammoth grasshoppers came down upon our town and vicinity on 

 Saturday night. We have never seen such large ones before, and we understand Irom 

 old citizens, that they are entire strangers in this part of the country. We saw aboj"- 

 have a string tied to two of them (which were as long as a man's finger) trying to drive 

 them, and he succeeded pretty well. 



A flock of grasshoppers alighted in Hamilton about 11 o"cloclv on Saturday night, 

 from the northwest. Those that were not drowned in the river or killed by the heavy 

 rain, were probably gobbled up before Sunday night by the chickens. 



[Fig. 17.] 



American Acridium. 



Such reports as these very naturally confirm the unscientific in 

 the idea that the locust plague of the West, or so-called " Kansas 

 grasshopper," has overstepped the limits entomology ascribes to it, 

 and is upsetting the conclusions which I have come to. The same 

 swarm passed over Oxford in the same State, in a southwesterly direc- 

 tion, and fortunately that veteran and well-known apiarian, the Rev. 

 L. L. Langstroth, who has not forgotten to be a close observer, had 

 specimens sent to me. They proved to be the American Acridium 

 {Acridium Americanujn) . As stated in my 8th Report, this is one of 

 the largest and most elegant of our N. A. locusts, the prevailing color 

 being dark brown, with a pale yellowish line along the middle of the 

 back when the wings are closed. It has a wide range, hibernates in 

 the winged condition, and differs not only in size and habits from the 

 Rocky Mountain Locust, but entomologically is as widely separated 

 from it as a sheep from a cow. It is a species common over the 

 country every year, and during exceptional years becomes excessively 

 numerous and acquires the migratory habit, its wings being long and 

 well adapted to flying. As I learn from Dr. S. Miller of Franklin, it 

 passed in swarms over part of Johnson county, Missouri, late in Sep- 

 tember; and it was everywhere abundant in 1876. 



The following extracts from letters of correspondents refer to this 



species : 



I send you by Mr. Shaw a small package containing specimens of locusts, destruc- 

 tive about Chattanooga and in all eastern Tennessee. They strike me as nearly allied 

 to the Rocky Mountain Locuf^t; fly with the same noise and sliine of wings, in large 

 shoals, but are larger.— [Dr. U. Engelmann, Warm Springs, N. C, Aug. 29, 1876. 



