FACKAKL).] AMERICAN LOCUST WESTERN CRICKET. 691 



spirits) color. We fouDd tliem so tbick that we could collect them by the 

 haudful, and in cousequence of their abundance and brilliancj' (else I 

 should not have noticed them) I secured a couple of quarts. All I have 

 at hand I send b3- American Express today, but will send a hundred 

 more if you wish. 



"A negro who was mowing near told us that he had never seen that 

 kind of grasshopper before ami that they were destroying the cottou. 

 We found no more in the neighborhood of Eome. 



"On a visit to Atlanta a week or so later we heard doleful complaints 

 about a new sort of ' hoppergrass ' that was destroying everything, 

 particularly the corn and cotton. This kind was said by the Atlanta 

 papers and farmers generally to have been hitherto unknown in Georgia, 

 and we were shown a lot of live specimens on a cotton-plant in a glass 

 globe in the rooms of the State Agricultural Department at Atlanta. 

 The officials asked us if that was not the terrible Kansas hopper. I 

 knew just enough about those fellows to assure them that it was not. 



" Later (August 12), near Lookout Mountain on Chattanooga Creek, 

 we saw several splendid fields of corn utterly devastated by these grass- 

 hoppers. The silk was gone and all the leaves and the husks peeled 

 down as close as if a sheep had been at them, or a rat. I suppose the 

 corn was not worth cutting at all, not even for fodder. As usual, all the 

 fences were covered. We collected here four hundred or five hundred 

 and put them in a large wire cage of lizards and chameleons for the 

 latter to feed on, but the insects tormented the reptiles so much that 

 we had to throw them away." 



This species, when winged, sometimes take flight in large swarms. The 

 following account of a flight in Columbia, S. C, has been communicated 

 to me by Professor Baird, assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution : 



Columbia, S. C, Xovember 18, 1876. 

 Prof. S. F. Baird, Washington, D. C. : 



I inclose you specimens of "locust" which made their appearance on Friday, No- 

 vember 17, at about 9.30 p. m. Quantities'could be gathered. I allowed my window 

 to be used to exhibit them, and soon had to stop receiving them. I find they are 

 locusts, from Wood's description, but find also that the same insect has been a denizen 

 here for a long time, by reference to a dried specimen which I have had for six months. 

 A week prior to their visit attention was called to the " specks," " meteors," " birds," 

 (Sec, flying in front of the moon. I have no doubt they were an advance-guard of 

 these locusts, as the under-wing is very brilliant in the light. I find they devour each 

 other, but do not molest linen or cotton or paper in the window. I examined the 

 fieces of the newly-arrived ones with the microscopes to judge of their last food, and 

 found it to be u-oody fiber. The locusts were traveling from northwest to southeast. 

 Resi^ectfully, «fcc., 



E. E. JACKSON. 



Another swarm is described in the Monthly Eeport of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture as "literally covering the streets" of Vevay, Ind., 

 beginning to drop down at half-past G in the evening and continuing till 

 8 p. m. This species has also swarmed in Sulfolk County, Virginia, 

 according to Mr. C. R. Dodge. — (Itural Carolinian, quoted by liiley, 

 Seventh Report.) 



The AVestern Cricket, J«a&c«s simjjZex Haldeman and A.haldemani Girard.— Very- 

 destructive to crops of wheat and other cereals and to grass; a large, stout, dark, cricket- 

 like insect. 



The "cricket" is especially injurious to crops in Utah, where it is very 

 annoying and abundant. I have found it (A. Haldemani Girard, named 

 by Mr. Scudder) common on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, where 



