90 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



and suffering were by no means mythical, as some have seemed to be- 

 lieve. 



1875. — During this year immense swarms appeared in Dakota. At 

 Bismarck they appeared June 6 until July 15, inflicting great damage 

 on all crops except potatoes. At Yankton and Fort Sully they were 

 abundant and destructive. The weather-signal observer at Fort Sully 

 reports large flights June 23, passing over during the morning, going 

 north and northwest at an estimated elevation of about fifty feet to as 

 high as they were visible with field-glasses, possibly a mile ; none alight- 

 ing. This swarm, as near as could be ascertained by telegraph at the 

 time, came from the Minnesota infested region, along the line of the 

 Sioux City and Saint Paul Eailroad, in a continuous cloud, probably 

 1,000 miles long from east to west and 500 miles from north to south. 

 How much farther north of this post unascertained and not conjectured. 

 (Rilej^s Eighth Eeport.) 



Lieut. L. G. Hunt writes from Fort Totten as follows : "In the summer 

 of 1875, grasshoppers hatched in the vicinity of the post took wing in 

 June, and left in the beginning of July.'^ (Whitman's Eeport, p. 18.) 

 *'This year [1875J they have passed over this part of the country, going 

 in a southeasterly direction. One day they lit down in considerable 

 numbers and there is reason to fear that they deposited their eggs," 

 (Eev. S. E. Eiggs, Sisseton agency). They did, and a few were hatched 

 there in 1876, writes Mr. Whitman. At Grand Forks the locusts came 

 from the north on or about the lOfch of July, and, after remaining- three 

 days, arose and flew southeast. (Hector Bruce.) Merrick Moore writes 

 from Jamestown: "Grasshoppers hatched in this county in the year 

 1875, and the country north and northwest of this place for a long dis- 

 tance was alive with young hoppers. Those hatched here took flight 

 about the 10th day of July, taking a southwesterly direction. Other 

 swarms from the northwest passed over this place high up, bearing a 

 south course. I cannot recall the dates, but they were from about the 

 20th of July till late in August. Immense swarms appeared, came into 

 Brookings Gounty from Minnesota (Eedwood Falls) July 28, on the 30th 

 were seen to be copulating, and August 1 and 2 deposited eggs. It was 

 found that partial destruction had extended down the valley of the Big 

 Sioux Eiver, but nowhere except in the south i3art of Brookings Gounty 

 had the eggs been deposited. The region of the ovipositing extended 

 eastward into Minnesota." No further trouble from locusts was ex- 

 perienced in 1875. (Godington; see also Appendix). 



187G. — This was also a bad year for Dakota. The young hatched out 

 in the northern and eastern portion of the Territory (Bismarck, Pem- 

 bina), and fl^'ing swarms in July and August, and September 1 and 2, were 

 observed at Bismarck, Pembina, Yankton, and Fort Sully, as well as at 

 the following towns: Buffalo, Glay, Hanson, Minnehaha, Eichland, and 

 Stutsman. (Monthly Eep. Dep. Ag. 187G.) Whitman states that the 

 young hatched in two eastern counties of Dakota and along the Eed 



