340 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



\^^hat birds existed in the State and to observe their effect on the locust, as I had been 

 then in the West but a short time. But go there when I would, for at least a month 

 »more or less birds could be seen on these grounds. Among these were various species 

 of blackbirds, bartramian and other plovers, quails, snipes, curlews, prairie-chickens, 

 and occasionally larks, and in June occasional orioles, sparrows, bobolinks, and robins. 

 Over a thousand birds must have been feeding here. Long before the middle of June 

 arrived most of the locusts had disappeared. And it is remarkable that further down 

 the river, in a settlement called Plyburg, many of the farms enjoyed a special immu- 

 nity from locust depredations. It appeared to me then that the large amount of low 

 and high, sparse and thick timber in that district so allured the birds that their abun- 

 dance shielded the people in a large degree from the disastrous effects of these locust 

 visitations. It was a nucleus, a center of dispersion for the timber and lowland lov- 

 ing birds. The fall previous to this Mr. John Smith, who had corn-fields near Ply- 

 burg, alone of all the farmers for a great distance around, saved his crops from the 

 locust swarms of 1864. 



4. During this same season (the spring of 1865), many of the bluff-lands west of 

 Dakota City, especially where there was new or old breaking, became the feeding- 

 grounds of great numbers of prairie-chickens and plover. There were then very few 

 settlers there, many of them having left because of the locust invasion of the preced- 

 ing fall. But to me it was remarkable how rapidly the young locusts disappeared 

 where the prairie-chickens and plovers were daily feeding. In such spots by the mid- 

 dle of June hardly a locust was left. 



5. At a point about nine miles west of Ponka, on the Niobrara road, the locusts 

 hatched out as elsewhere in prodigious numbers. Here, however, there were some 

 fields that the yellow-headed blackbirds, the quails, and plovers visited in such num- 

 bers that few locusts survived to injure the crops. I saw them at work here, and a 

 settler afterward told me that the birds scattered over wider areas after the locust 

 supply began to give out. 



6. In August, 1866, the locusts Invaded Cedar and Dixon Counties in swarms that 

 darkened the sun. At one point on the Lower Bow, between Saint James and the 

 Missouri, where the ground was covered with them, birds in great numbers in species 

 and individuals made an apparently simultaneous attack on the locusts* Although 

 they did not destroy them all, yet they very perceptibly reduced their numbers for that 

 and the following season. Ifc was amusing to see a large number of swallows glut 

 themselves with locusts on the wing. 



7. In June, 1867, I visited these counties (Dixon and Cedar), where the newly- 

 hatched-out locusts were destroying the crops of cereals and corn ; and, although I 

 could not remain in any one place more than a day, yet I found several localities where 

 the settlers attributed their immunity from locust losses to the interposition of the 

 birds ; and the ones that were credited with most work of this kind were the plovers, 

 various kinds of blackbirds, quail, prairie-chickens, curlews, and snipes. One spot I 

 especially noted. It was near Lime Creek, on the road from New Castle to Saint 

 James. Having camped here on the creek, I found an old abandoned field near by 

 where the locusts were exceedingly thick. On my return I found great numbers of 

 plover and other birds on the ground, and not one locust to ten that had been there 

 when I passed up a week previous. Within a quarter of a mile on these grounds I 

 counted 439 plover, blackbirds, prairie-chickens, and quail. I could come to no other 

 conclusion than that the birds were the cause of the disappearance of the locusts. 



8. In June, 1866, the locusts, whose eggs had been laid the fall previous, had been 

 hatched out in countless numbers. One field, in a section a few miles southwest from 

 Decatur, became frequented by an exceptional number of birds. My attention being 

 directed to it, I visited the spot, and found that the locusts had nearly all disappeared- 

 And though I had not seen this spot earlier, yet I had no reason to doubt the state- 

 ment of the settlers that the locusts had been as thick there as anywhere in the county. 



9. In the summer and fall of 1874 the locusts appeared in Southeastern Nebraska, in 



