PACKARD.] ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST. 591 



by specialists, for the pure love of science. Their cloister studies, put to 

 practical account, saves the destruction of one of the largest agricul- 

 tural interests in Southern Europe. In like manner, had tlie United 

 States encouraged the entomologist and botanist in tbeir studies, and 

 caused them to be turned to practical account, we should not have had 

 to give up the cultivation of wheat in the Northeastern States; our cot- 

 ton-crop could perhaps have been doubled, and our garden and field 

 crops would have regularly yielded a steady return to the producer. 



Let us look for a moment at the losses sustained in the United States 

 from the attacks of insects. The annual agricultural products of this 

 country by the last census amounted in value to $3,500,000,000. Of this 

 amount we in all probability annualh/ lose over $200,000,000 from tlie 

 attacks of injurious insects alone. The losses from the ravages of the 

 locust in the border States in 1874 were estimated at $45,000,000. The 

 estimated money loss occasioned by the chinch-bug in Illinois in 18G4 

 was over $73,000,000; in Missouri, in 1874, it was estimated at not less 

 than $19,000,000. The average annual loss from the attacks of the cot- 

 ton-worm is probably between $25,000,000 and $50,000,000. Add to 

 these the losses sustained by the attacks of over a thousand other spe- 

 cies of insects which affect our cereals, forage and field crops, fruit-trees 

 and shrubs, garden-vegetables, shade and ornamental trees, as well as 

 our hard and pine forests and stored fruits, and it will not be thought 

 an exaggeration to put our annual losses from the ravages of insects at 

 $200,000,000. If the people of this country would only look at this an- 

 nual depletion, this absolute waste, which drags her backward in the 

 race with the countries of the Old World, they might see the necessity 

 of taking effectual preventive measures in restraining the ravages of 

 Insects with care and forethought, based on the observations of scien- 

 tific men. I believe that from $50,000,000 to $100,000,000, or from one- 

 quarter to one-half of this annual waste, could be saved to the country. 

 It is to be hoped now that the National Government has caused the 

 locust evil to be investigated, such other insects as the chinch-bug, 

 cotton- worm, Hessian fly, &c., may hereafter be examined and reported 

 upon. 



With thanks for the liberal spirit you have shown in causing the in- 

 jurious insects of the Territories surveyed by you to be studied, and for 

 the generous way in which this report has been illustrated, thereby 

 greatly increasing its practical usefulness to the i)eople of the Territo- 

 ries visited, 



I remain, very truly, yours, 



A. S. PACKARD, Jr. 



Dr. F. V. Hayden, 



United States Geologist-in-Charge. 



INSECTS INJURING CEREALS, GRASSES, ETC. 



TnK Westeun MiGnATor.Y Locust, Calopfetnis sprctns of Thomas, appearing period- 

 ically in vast swarms iu Utab, Montana, IdaUo, Dakota, British America, and Colorado, 

 and Texas and Indian Territory, and periodically migrating eastward to Minnesota, 

 Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Western Missouri ; a medium-sized grasshopper, with red 

 hind legs, cons'.imiug entire lields of grain, corn, grass, etc., eating both stalk and 

 leaves. 



As a study of the habits, distribution, and ravages of the western 

 migratory locust is of special importance, and the desire for fresh in- 

 formation regarding the habits of the insect in its home on the elevated 



