GRASSHOPPERS IN GENERAL. 17 



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tested over sixty pounds to the bushel. Later, I wont to the round- 

 house of the Rock Island railroad, at Goodland, and examined a num- 

 ber of the cow-catchers of the engines, as they came in off their runs, 

 in order to ascertain the species of grasshoppers caught along the 

 track. I found the species which were most common there to be the 

 Long- winged Locust, Dissosteira longipennis, the Carolina Locust, 

 Dissosteira Carolina, and the yellow locust, Melanoplus differentials. 

 Through the courtesy of General Foreman Loy and his assistant, I 

 was enabled to meet a number of the engineers and learn from them 

 the state of the case. From Engineer Maclellan I learned that the 

 trouble with the grasshoppers was always at night, and that at no time 

 were they so plentiful but that an engine having forced sand draft 

 could easily pass over them in safety ; and further, that they had ex- 

 perienced some difficulty on the run between Goodland and Norton. 

 So, when leaving Goodland, I placed myself in a favorable position to 

 view the grasshoppers as they flew by in front of the engine, and 

 noted that no grasshoppers arose except as the train was passing be- 

 tween fields where the crop was being harvested on the one side and 

 corn or some other crop standing on the other side. The numbers at 

 these places were not great. It was evident, however, that the grass- 

 hoppers, in moving into the new feeding ground in the evening when 

 the ground had become cool, were attracted by the steel rails which 

 retained the heat longer than the ground, and when thus collected 

 caused the trouble to the trains. It seemed conclusive that the inter- 

 ference on the track was not because of the number of grasshoppers, 

 but because those in the vicinity of the track were drawn to the rail 

 by the heat. Some of the newspaper accounts which I read would 

 lead one to believe that they were creeping over the track in a contin- 

 uous mass. Letters received in answer to inquiries, from Messrs. D. 

 A. Long, of Ruleton, and T. W. Simmons, of Goodland, gave the 

 following facts : Mr. Simmons stated that they severely damaged his 

 oats, corn, potatoes, and garden vegetables. He stated that those big 

 yellow grasshoppers mined out the pie-plant ; he feared that some of 

 his trees, being stripped so early, are permanently injured. Mr. Sim- 

 mons said that this was the first year that grasshoppers had ever com- 

 mitted any serious depredations, and that the damage this year was 

 quite local in its extent. He also said it is the belief there among 

 many that ground plowed dried out worse than when not plowed, and 

 that it was the custom to drill the wheat in the stubble year after 

 year. Specimens received from Mr. Simmons were as expected the 

 Differential grasshopper. Mr. Long's letter is as follows : 



DEAR SIR: In reply to yours of the 18th, in regard to grasshoppers, I would 

 say that they did a great deal of damage here this year in spots, mostly in the 

 fields of wheat, barley, and oats, by cutting off the heads of the grain. Some 

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