6 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



to send the address of any one who they think would thus co-operate with the Com- 

 mission. 



While locusts have not seriously ravaged the Pacific coast since 1855, it is very desir- 

 able for the Commission to ascertain whether it is the Rocky Mountain locust or some 

 other species of grasshopper which has periodically devastated the coast for nearly 

 two centuries past. For this purpose specimens from all parts of the States of Cali- 

 fornia, Nevada, and Oregon, and Arizona and Washington Territories, are earnestly 

 desired. 



Please, therefore, send me specimens of any destructive grasshopper, as well as 

 samples of all the different kinds of grasshoppers and crickets, their eggs, young, and 

 parasites, in your town or county, so that I may be sure which species is referred to in 

 your communication. They may be killed by hot water or soaked in alcohol a few 

 hours, dried and packed between papers, in cotton or sawdust, in strong wooden or tin 

 boxes, and mailed to me at Salem, Mass. Il would be well also to keep a bottle of 

 alcohol or whisky on hand into which specimens could be thrown from time to time. 

 The bottle could be carefully packed and sent, at the end of the season, by express, to 

 the headquarters of the Commission at Saint Louis, Mo. 



Please inclose in all parcels and bottles a label giving date, town, countj', and State 

 or Territory, the name of collector, written with a black-lead pencil on stout letter- 

 paper. Postage will, of course, be refunded, if desired. Trusting to receive your 

 hearty co-operation in the objects of the Commission, 

 I remain, your obedient servant, 



A. S. PACKARD, Jr., 

 Secretary United States Entomological Comjnission. 



Has your section ever been visited by invading swarms of grasshoppers ? If so, name 

 the years. 



Please furnish copies of all the records you can obtain which were made at the time 

 of the visitations of the grasshoppers, whether written or printed. 



As will be seen by the classified replies in the appeadix, much valuable 

 information was obtained by means of the first general circular, but 

 .scarcely any on the special points in the others. This was to be ex- 

 pected, as the average farmer is in no position to carry out special 

 investigations, which for their satisfactory completion require time, 

 training, and proper appliances. 



It is our intention, in this connection, to give a brief history of our 

 field-work and of the locust phenomena of the season, but for full details 

 regarding the year's occurrences in the different States the reader is 

 referred to the chapter on chronology and to the appendices. 



As will appear in the chapter just referred to, locust-eggs had been 

 laid in 1876 over an extensive area, roughly defined by drawing a line 

 from Breckenridge to Cheyenne, thence to the Taos Yalley, thence to 

 Houston, thence to Saint Paul, the eastern line deflecting westward in 

 Missouri and Kansas. They were most thickly laid east of the 100th 

 meridian, and the gravest apprehensions were naturally felt as to the 

 iujury that would result in the spring of 1877. The examination of eggs 

 from time to time during the winter, from different parts of the area 

 just defined, made it quite certain, as spring approached, that the ma- 

 jority of them would hatch; and as already intimated, the young 

 insects were doing much injury in southerly regions by the time the 

 Commission was created. Mr. Riley visited Texas in April, when the 



