88 EEPOKT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 

 THE LOCUST IN DAKOTA. 



1853 — The first notice of locusts in Dakota is to be found in Governor 

 8tevens's narrative of 1853 (Pacific E. E. Explorations, a^oI. xii, part 1, p. 

 58). He was camped on the Cheyenne Eiver near Fort TottCD, and re- 

 marks: "The grass at the best is very poor, and the great abundance 

 of grasshoppers has made sad havoc with what had grown here." 



Although Dakota was probably overrun by swarms which invaded 

 Minnesota from the northwest in the year 1856, yet, as no mention has 

 been made of the fact, we will not further mention it here. 



1863. — "In 1863 it will be remembered that on General Sibley^s ex- 

 pedition to the Missouri, we met with the ravages of the grasshoppers in 

 various parts of Dakota, particularly, as I remember, near Skunk Lake 

 (in Minnehaha County), where the large grass had been eaten to the 

 bare stalks, and our animals fared badly." (S. E. Eiggs in Whitman's 

 Eeport on the Locust.) Mr. Whitman thinks they were probably the 

 parents of those which invaded Minnesota in 1864. At Walhalla, Pem- 

 bina County, they have occurred " every year from 1863 to 1875." (G. 

 Em merlin g.) 



1864. — " We have had them every year from 1863 to 1875. They came 

 one year and left us the next, when the young had acquired wings, and 

 so they came and went all the time." (G. Emmerling, Walhalla, Pem- 

 berton County.) 



" Last year [1864] about five days' march from the Yellowstone, we met 

 the army of grasshoppers on their way east. After that I suffered greatly 

 for grass and many of my animals died. The grasshoppers made a gen- 

 eral clearing out down to this place, and then disappeared." (Extract 

 from letter of General Sully, in Saint Paul Press, June 21, 1868.) 



1805-'69. — " In 1865 1 visited a camp of Dakota scouts, near the ' Hole 

 in the Mountain,' at the head of the Eedwood. That was in tlie month 

 of August. The valley of the Minnesota, clear out to the Coteau, was so 

 full of grasshoppers as to make it unpleasant traveling. For the next 

 four years, I trav^eled every summer on the Missouri Eiver, coming over 

 to and from Minnesota ; every season I met with grasshoppers at some 

 point on the east side of the Missouri. In 1867, and also in 1868, we 

 found them near Fort Eandall. In 1869. in August, we met them above 

 Fort Sully, near Grand Eiver. In all the cases they were only in small 

 battallions, and appeared to have corae there from other parts." (S. 

 E. Eiggs in Whitman's Eeport.) 



Mr. J. P. TuUer states that late in July, 1868, he observed immense 

 numbers of locusts at Devil's Lake, near FortTotten, where their bodies 

 formed rows from four to six feet long and two or three feet wide. They 

 caused such a stench that there resulted forty- two cases of bilious fever 

 among the inhabitants. No mention is made of this fact in " Eeports on 

 Barracks and Hospitals " of the Surgeon-General's Office for 1870, though 

 it is stated that a " post-garden was attempted last year, but the grass- 

 hoppc ?s destroyed the crop." This probably refers to the year 1868. 



