THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 157 
enemy.’ The next monthly report (that for October) records 
the prevalence of the plague in two more counties in Minne- 
sota, two more in Iowa, four more in Missouri, four more in 
Kansas, four more in Nebraska, three in Texas, two in 
Colorado, and one in California. The following letter from 
Kansas is recorded ‘to give some idea of its ravages :’— 
‘The farmers in my county had their land for wheat prepared 
in good time, and in a better condition than [ ever saw. On 
the 6th of September the grasshoppers made their appearance 
all over the county. Farmers became alarmed, and did not 
sow any wheat. About the 18th to the 20th they appeared to 
go away. Farmers commenced sowing, and got in about 
two-thirds of their crop. On the 28th and 29th they came 
the second time, filling the air, reminding one of a snow- 
storm in December. Some who had sown early had wheat 
up nice, but you cannot find a spear in any place. Wheat 
which was sown before the grasshoppers came the first time 
has been eaten down, until the grain has finally ceased to 
grow. I am candidly of the opinion that every acre which is 
sown to-day in this county will have to be sown again. There 
is no other chance for it; and the great trouble will be that 
so many of our farmers have sown all their seed, and are not 
able to buy again. And what will they do? Some who 
have not been two years on their claims are leaving them, 
and going over into Missouri and Arkansas to winter, to find 
something to live upon.’ We might go on to an almost 
unlimited extent with similar descriptions of the wide-spread 
devastation caused by these insects, and the consternation 
they have produced throughout the west. Every agricultural 
newspaper and a large number of city papers have published 
throughout the past season similar records of ruin and suffer- 
ing. To assist their brethren in the afflicted regions, large 
sums of money have been contributed both by State Govern- 
ments and by individuals; but it is greatly to be feared that 
the utmost liberality will hardly save from ruin, though it 
may relieve temporarily, many farmers who had recently settled 
on those hitherto attractive plains. Not only, it should be 
remembered, have they suffered from a dire plague of locusts, 
but they have also been the victims of a long-continued 
drought, accompanied in some localities by a terrible hot 
wind, resembling the sirocco that blasts Southern Europe 
