LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 



Office of the United States 

 Geological Survey of the Territories, 



Washington, D. C, February 2, 1878. 



Sir : I have the honor, in behalf of the Commissioners, to transmit to you the first 

 annual report of the United States Entomological Commission for the year 1877. This 

 Commission, consisting of three skilled entomologists, was authorized by act of Con- 

 gress approved March 3, 1877, to report upon the depredations of the Rocky Mountain 

 locusts in the Western States and Territories, and the best practicable method of pre- 

 venting their recurrence or guarding against their invasions, and was attached to the 

 United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories under my charge. 



The Commissioners at once began their work upon receiving their appointments. 

 Several thousand circulars asking for information were sent to persons in the locust 

 area, and two bulletins in pamphlet form were issued, one containing full information 

 regarding the preventive measures and direct remedies then known against the young 

 locusts, for immediate use by farmers ; the second containing an account of the habits 

 of the locust, so far as then known, with numerous illustrations. 



The field work was so subdivided as best to promote the end in view. It was carried 

 on from early in April until the early part of November. 



Mr. Eiley was in the field and among the farmers in the more southern portions of the 

 locust region, at those seasons when his services and observations were of most benefit. 

 He went in April to Texas, and devoted most of the month of May to Southwest Mis- 

 souri and Kansas. He visited Iowa in June, examining parts of Northwest Missouri 

 and portions of Kansas and Nebraska. The month of July was spent by him in Colo- 

 rado, and most of August and part of September in British America. In October he 

 a^ain spent some time in Kansas, and again visited Texas in November. 



Mr. Packard, late in May, started for Wyoming and Utah, spending a few days in 

 Colorado, and in June passed through Idaho and Montana, from Franklin to Fort 

 Benton, thence down the Missouri River to Bismarck, and through Dakota to Saint 

 Paul, Minn. He was, in August and September, in the Western Territories, and was in 

 Utah and Nevada at the time when the people were suffering from the locusts, and 

 afterward made a journey through Northern California, Eastern Oregon, and Wash- 

 ington Territory, so as to ascertain the western limits of the distribution of the Rocky 

 Mountain locust. He, also, with the aid of observers in California, determined, with 

 tolerable certainty, the species which have, for two centuries past, locally ravaged 

 Oregon and California. 



Mr. Thomas investigated the ravages and migrations of the locust in Iowa, Nebraska, 

 and Minnesota, making three different trips to thesi sections for this purpose. 



The great practical importance of an exhaustive study of this destructive insect 

 throughout all the immense extent of the locust area, which lies between the 94th and 

 120th meridian, embracing nearly two million square miles, may be realized from the 

 fact that on a careful estimate from all the data obtainable the States and Territories 

 lying west of the Mississippi and east of the great plains suffered by the depredations 

 of the locusts an aggregate loss, in the destruction of crops alone, during the years 

 1874-'77, of 1100,000,000, to say nothing of the indirect loss by stoppage of business and 

 various enterprises, which must have been fully as much more, thus making the direct 

 and indirect loss not less than $200,000,000. In addition to all this we must include as 



