chronology: IOWA, 1833-18C5. 77 



eastern Dakota, and settled in places here. They avoided cornfields, 

 settling in small grain and grass. They appeared to be in a feeble, 

 degenerate condition, always leaving the next morning, eating nothing, 

 appearing to come down to rest. They departed in a southwesterly 

 direction." At I^ebo, *' after our own crop left, swarms were flying over 

 us for many days from the northeast." At Dewitt, Saline County, 

 "fresh swarms from the northeast passed over, and some few settled, 

 but went off again in a few days, except a few stragglers that remained 

 until October 1 ; no eggs were laid." At Omaha swarms were observed 

 in the air. 



THE LOCUST IN IOWA. 



This state has probably been afflicted in nearly the same years as 

 Minnesota; the locusts never extending, however, more than a little 

 beyond the western half of the State. 



1833.— The authority for a locust invasion this year is the following 

 extract from a letter from Mr. A. Strong, of Pocahontas, Iowa, to Mr. 

 Whitman: " In regard to the grasshopper raid of 1833, there was no 

 white settlement here then, but there is a part of a tribe of Indians liv- 

 ing near the center of this State, and they used to hunt through here, 

 and in some of their visits here in 1866, their chief, Johnny Green, who 

 was a very old man, told the people here that thirty-three years before 

 that the grasshoppers came so thick that the grass was all eaten off, and 

 there was no grass for their ponies; and the ground looked black, as if 

 there had been a prairie fire. He also said that there had been no more 

 grasshoppers till 1866, when he was speaking. This chief was a very 

 intelligent man, and was about one-half white; but the Indians are very 

 liable to exaggerate; I have forgotten the name of the tribe of Indians, 

 but think they were the Winnebagoes or Pottawattomies."* 



1856. — In Western and Northwestern Iowa, their ravages this year 

 were inconsiderable (Eiley's seventh report). They came in August 

 from the north and flew south. Eggs hatched in great numbers in the 

 spring, but no damage was done by the young in 1857. (A. H. Gleasou, 

 Little Sioux, Harrison County.) 



1857. — The general locust invasion which swept this year over the 

 Northwest, also reached as far east as Central Iowa. (Eiley's seventh 

 report.) Ida, Adams, Pottawattamie (Council Blafifs) Counties were 

 visited. (Whitman.) 



1864-65.— Some damage was done in 1864 about Sioux City. Eggs 

 were laid which hatched out in 1865; the young doing considerable 

 mischief. 



1885.— The Saint Paul Press for June 21, 1865, is authority for the 

 following statement: *' General Sully, in a private letter from Sioux 

 City, gives the following account of the grasshopper plague which is 



4 Col. W. Thompson, of Bismarck, told us th at in 1850, at Council Bluffs, grasshoppers ate up a corn- 

 field late in July or early in August ; the corn belonged to the Mormons, The species may liave been, 

 and probably was, Caloptenus femur -rubrum, the common red-legged locust. 



