12 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 333 



easy to poison, and it lays its eggs in very definite types of 

 terrain so that in the spring the young 'hoppers are concentrated 

 in relatively small areas. The importance of these two things 

 can be readily appreciated in any program where the object is 

 the prevention of outbreaks. 



Now in Montana there is more than one important species 

 on our range; in fact a dozen different species must be con- 

 sidered and at least three or four are of primary concern. Last 

 summer thirty different collections of grasshoppers were made 

 through central, north-central, and eastern Montana with 

 the idea of showing the relative distribution of species on the 

 range and in near-by crops. The results are shown in table 3. 

 These collections were made in July before the great seasonal 

 dispersion and migration of grasshoppers took place. It will be 

 seen that out of the twenty-five different kinds of grasshoppers 

 collected on range land, five or six were not only very abundant 

 but were taken in many different places. The most important 

 ones are the Big-headed grasshopper (Aulocara elliotti) and the 

 Lesser Migratory grasshopper (Melanoplus mexicanus). These 

 are surely the dominant ones and are shown in figures 1 and 2. 

 At different times and in different places several other species 

 would doubtless be important factors in range destruction. Pos- 

 sibly the Warrior grasshopper (Camnula pellucida) should rank 

 third over the state in general, although superceded in these par- 

 ticular collections by two other species. With such a ranking 

 the three important range grasshoppers are also very important 

 to cultivated crops, although they are not the only ones. 



In relation to these data it is worth while to note that R. A. 

 Cooley in the First Report of the State Entomologist, December, 

 1903, wrote as follows: 



In our various trips into the worst affected regions we found a fairly 

 uniform state of affairs throughout. On the range two or three species, 

 taken together, constitute a large proportion of the total number, though in 

 restricted localities one or another species besides these was more abundant. 

 The three most common species on the range were the Big-headed locust 

 (Aulocara elliotti), the Lesser Migratory locust f Melanoplus atlanis), and 

 the Yellow-winged or Warrior locust (Camnula pellucida). In point of 

 abundance the Big-headed grasshopper was the leading species of the three. 

 The Lesser-Migratory locust was second in importance. It prefers the drier 

 uplands to the irrigated valleys, but in many cases it was found in great 

 abundance in grain fields, particularly on the benches and in non-irrigated 



