346 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



eaten to the ground as fast as they sprouted above the surface. 

 Corn eaten to the ground would again sprout, some as much as 

 the third time, but was generally killed by that time. Irish pota-: 

 toes whose sprouts were eaten off close, afterwards bore a crop, 

 but were a little later than those planted just after the locusts 

 left. 



Towards the latter part of May vegetation became scarce, and 

 the locusts, being larger and more ravenous, would eat things 

 previously discarded. 



Early in the season the leaves had been eaten off the grape- 

 vines, currant and gooseberry bushes, strawberries, and most 

 small shrubs, and many shrubs were killed Later in the season 

 the larger bushes and some trees suffered ; all the gooseberry and 

 currant bushes were killed. Leaves were now eaten off the apple, 

 pear and peach trees, and the young fruit was also devoured ; next 

 the buds were appropriated, and then the pests would commence 

 to eat the bark off the young twigs. In this way many young 

 fruit trees, chiefly apple, were destroyed. The sumach {Rhus) 

 and wahoo (^Euonymus) were denuded of leaves, and often the 

 entire bark from trees 6 feet high was stripped. The locusts 

 would climb forty feet to the tops of coffee trees ( Gymnocla- 

 dus) and eat the leaves. At night they would ascend apple trees 

 for rest, and be ready by early morning to climb to the top limbs 

 and eat buds and leaves. For this reason our apple trees, the 

 present year, had either no apples, or very few and small ones, 

 on the upper branches. 



Generally retiring before sunset, the insects would climb on 

 fences and trees, and there remain until 8 or 9 o'clock next morn- 

 ing ; and if it was cool, damp, or rainy, they would scarcely move 

 from their place of repose during the whole day. On damp days 

 my apple trees would be covered, and I could pass among them 

 with a flat board and brush oft' many thousands of the insects. 

 After constant occupation of the fences as resting places, we 

 would find them denuded of the softer, rotten exterior, it having 

 been eaten off, so that the fences would have the appearance of 

 being well scraped. 



At one time the locusts covered a field of mine as thick as 5 

 bushels to the acre, and several persons estimated that in the 

 township of 3 by 9 miles they would average i to ij bushels per 



