﻿118 NINTH ANNUAL REPORT 



The eggs are very small, as the pods also, and fully one-half of the eggs are 

 addled. 



I wish your ophiion in relation to a question under discussion here, viz : Will the 

 grasshoppers, that are now in a fleshy or larval state, hatch ? The f ggs that were laid 

 during the earlier part of the season that the 'hoppers were here, have developed into 

 a larval state, and many persons claim that, because of that development, they will 

 perish by the Winter. My opinion is. that they are all right and will hatch. What do 

 you say. The later laid eggs are yet in a fluid state. 



Council Bluffs, Iowa. H. C. EAYMOND. 



I am, as will be seen above, of your opinion. 



I have to-day been examining grasshopper eggs, and where they are thickest I 

 have found worms or larva) like the enclosed. Are they the white worms that were in 

 the eo^g cocoons last Fall, or are they something else? The grasshopper eggs seem 

 in good condition ; but we are having very warm weather now, and the frost is com- 

 ing out of the ground. The weather is much like that we had in '67-8. I found no 

 worms in the cocoons with the eggs. WM. DUNN. 



Syracuse, Otoe county, Neb., Feb. 1, 1877. 



The locust eggs are yet sound, but I have some hope that the recent very warm 

 weather, if succeeded by severe cold, will cause the death of a large portion. [The 

 grubs preying on the eggs were the Ichneumon larva described on p. 96, Fig. 24], 



Friend Clarkson, agricultural editor of the Iowa State Register, recommends that 

 grasshopper eggs be sent you for examination, and I send by mail to-day, in a tin box, 

 some eggs wliich have been taken from the ground under the following conditions : 

 As you will find, I have packed them in layers in the box. with paper between. The 

 top layer was taken trom black loam on a piece of ground apt to keep dry — that is, well 

 drained — and have never been completely thawed since irozen in the beginning of 

 Winter. The middle layer was taken from sand, and has repeatedly been frozen and 

 thawed out — the water from thawing snow running over and completely saturating 

 the sand daily for some days. The bottom layer is from low land, which was sub- 

 merged in five feet of water for ten days after they were deposited in the Fall, the 

 ground remaining muddj^ till frozen, afterwards covered with snow; the continued 

 thawing and evaporation of the last few days have removed the snow and left the sur- 

 face for two inches in depth thawed and dry. For the past few days we have had it 

 warm in day time, but freezing at night. The place is in Adams county, ninety miles 

 east of Council Bluffs, and forty miles north of the Missouri line. 



WM. THOMPSON. 



Mt. Etna, Adams County, Iowa, January 30, 1877. 



The eggs from all three of the diflFerent positions are so little advanced in develop- 

 ment that it is impossible to say positively that they are all sound. The liquids have 

 scarcely begun to thicken. So far as I feel warranted in giving an opinion, I should 

 say that they are all sound— those of the third batch only, giving some evidence of 

 injury by the weakening of the integument. [All hatched since.] 



By this mail I forward to you one box of the grasshopper eggs. Are they in a 

 good state of preservation, and will they hatch in the Spring if everything hereafter is 

 favorable? 



Enclosed I hand you an extract from the Interior. You will see the question raised 

 there as to whether an egg can be partially hatched, as these are, and then the process 

 delayed for a long time, and afterwards resume the work and go on to completion. All 

 our people here regard this proposition with considerable doubt. In fact, they deny 

 that such a thing can be done. I should infer that you hold that these eggs will hatch, 

 notwithstanding the interruption. Will you please enlighten us fully as to why this 

 is thus? 



Hutchinson, Kansas, January 29, 1877. J. B. SHANE. 



The article alluded to by Mr. Shane closes with the following editorial remarks : 



Without arrogating to ourself any si)eeial wisdom on the subject, but reasoning 

 from analogy only, should decide tiiat in the case of the eggs referred to by Major 

 Shane — at.d in fact, all the eggs in the country in the same condition — incubation has 

 been arrested, and that once arrested, it has ceased forever. In all life that emanates 

 from an ( gg (and what life does not, except the vegetable?) when its development is 

 arrested during incubation, it is a permanent paralysis; in other words, it is death. 

 We say that, analogically, this should be so, but we nuiy be wrong. 



