CHAPTER II 



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THE ALLIES OF THE RED-LEGGED LOCUST : ORTHOPTERA 



The poetry of nature is never dead : 



When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, 



And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 



From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead : 



That is the grasshopper's, he takes the lead 



In summer luxury, he has never done 



With his delights. KEATS. 



Locusts. Though the common red-legged locust is widely 

 distributed throughout the United States, it has not attracted 

 so much attention as the Rocky Mountain locust, for its 

 effects on agriculture have not been so marked. The latter 

 has the remarkable habit of migrating from its habitat (see 

 map, p. 17) on the dry plains east of the Rocky Mountains, 

 destroying in a few hours the labors of the farmer for several 

 months. Not only are growing crops devoured, but every 

 green thing is attacked, leaving the country as bare as if a 

 fire had swept over it. It has been said that 'these swarms 

 occur at intervals of about eleven years. The locusts show a 

 tendency to become gregarious (having the habit of associat- 

 ing in groups) from the beginning of their life as nymphs, 

 but their migrations are not generally begun before they are 

 at least half grown. These hordes proved so destructive to 

 the agricultural district of the Middle West from 1873 to 

 1877 that a commission was appointed by the government 

 to study their habits and to report upon ways and means for 

 checking their devastations. Of late years this species has 

 not been so abundant or so destructive. Many machines have 

 been constructed to capture them. A recent method of fight- 

 ing them is to cultivate in a sweet solution a fungous growth 



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