CHRONOLOGY : MONTANA, 1877. 95 



from the southeast, as we heard of them at Camp Baker, eighty or ninety 

 miles southeast of here, before they got here, but they do not appear 

 to have migrated from here at all." 



1877. — Locusts hatched out on the north banks of the Yellowstone 

 Elver from Froze-to-death Creek to Clark's Fork, an area of 100 miles in 

 length. General Brisbin stated to me that young locusts were observed 

 by a party of officers eighteen miles east of Fort Ellis. According to 

 James M. Arnoux, young locusts hatched out in the spring on the Marias 

 Kiver, near the Badger Eiver trading-post (about longitude 113° 10'), but 

 were killed by the heavy rains, &c. 



The first swarms seen flying in the Territory were return flights from 

 the east seen at Fort Peck by Mr. S. S. Hughes, acting Indian agent at 

 Wolf Point, who states that " large swarms like masses of clouds arrived 

 June 18, from a point due east j some were seen on the 21st on the ground, 

 having either dropped by the way or been forced back by the west 

 wind, but were hatched in the vicinity of Fort Peck or Wolf Point this 

 spring." 



O. C. Mortson reports locusts as hatching out at Benton, but the young* 

 were killed by the wet weather. *' Ninety miles south of Fort Benton 

 they were in large numbers, coming from the east," August 4, 1877. 

 August 13 and 14, moderate swarms arrived larger ones appeared one 

 hundred miles south. 



W. C. Gillett reports July 15, 1877, that no locusts were at Helena 

 at that date, "but in the eastern portion of the Territory they report 

 some as coming." 



E. K. Sutherlin reports that no eggs were laid in the Missouri Valley, 

 about Diamond City, in 1876 ; that swarms came July 24, 1877, into the 

 valleys of the Madison, Gallatin, Missouri, Crow Creek, Jefierson, and 

 Sun Eiver, and an immense amount of eggs were deposited about the 

 10th of August. There was no damage to crops in Deer Lodge and Mis- 

 soula Counties, and no eggs were deposited there. 



Dr. S. S. Turner writes from Fort Peck, June 30, that the locusts are 

 "numerous here at present; have been copulating for several days. 

 They were hatched here before my arrival." 



In passing through Montana, from Franklin to Fort Benton, in June, 

 no young were observed or heard of, and the inference to be drawn is 

 that few eggs were deposited in the previous summer in Central Mon- 

 tana, except in the Bitter-Eoot Valley. Eggs must have been deposited 

 numerously along the Yellowstone and its tributaries to afford the supply 

 of locusts that, in July, 1877, swarmed in Central Montana. 



Mr. G. W. E'orris, superintendent of the Yellowstone National Park, 

 writes us (under date of February, 1878,) that, in passing up from Bis- 

 marck to the Yellowstone Park, he saw locusts, " the first of the season," 

 on Custer's battle-field, July 5. " Their line of flight was a little south of 

 west, as 1 passed out of it at the mouth of the Big Horn, and again 

 entered it at Pompey's Pillar, July 12, and continued in it, but reaching 



