404 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



thick coatings of soft soap, have been used with varying success; but 

 no estoppel equals the bright tin. The others require constant watching 

 and renewal, and in all cases coming under our observation some insects 

 would get into the trees, so as to require the daily shaking of these 

 morning and evening. This will sometimes have to be done, when the 

 bulk of the insects have become fledged, even where tin is used, for a 

 certain proportion of the insects will then fly into the trees. They do 

 most damage during the night, and care should be had that the trees be 

 unloaded of their voracious freight just before dark. 



Mr. George Gibbs, of Holden, Mo., found that the whitewash was ren- 

 dered still more effectual by adding one- half pint of turpentine to the 

 pailful. 



DESTRUCTION OF THE WlNaED INSECTS. 



" The complete destruction of the winged insects, when they swoop 

 down upon a country in prodigious swarms, is impossible. Man is pow- 

 erless before the mighty host. Special plants, or small tracts of vege- 

 tation maybe saved by perseveringly driving the insects off', or keeping 

 them off by means of smudges, as the locusts avoid smoke; or by rat- 

 tling or tinkling noises constantly kept up. Long ropes perseveringly 

 dragged over a grain-field have been used to good advantage." 



Of the different contrivances already described for the destruction of 

 the unfledged locusts, those intended for bagging and catching are the 

 most effectual against the winged individuals, great numbers of which 

 may be caught, especially at morn and eve, and late in the autumn. At 

 such times many may also be crushed. These winged insects are more 

 to be dreaded in the northern than in the southern portion of the locust 

 area, for in this last the small grains are always harvested before the 

 advent of the pests, and Indian corn is the staple that suffers. The ex- 

 perience of Minnesota and Dakota farmers teaches that the injury from 

 the winged locusts is best avoided by growing such crops as will mature 

 early. Eeports were current last summer in Texas that farmers near 

 Calvert had destroyed great quantities of the winged insects by tires 

 lighted at night. We had on several occasions witnessed swarms of 

 locusts driven before a prairie-fire, and our general experience of locust 

 habits at night forbade belief in the reports, and we requested one of 

 our correspondents to inquire into the matter, with the following result; 



I took pains to trace up, while in Texas, the report that the spretns was attracted by 

 a blaze. I found it, of course, baseless, though it had attained very respectable pro- 

 portions.:— [J. T. Moultou, jr. 



Moderate success has been had with smudging as a means of warding 

 off the winged swarms. The best method is to start a fire which burns 

 wath ihsufBcient access of air, and which is made, if i)ossible, of materials 

 which, while burning, will give off, besides the dense smoke due to in- 

 complete combustion, unoxidized products of distillation which in them- 

 selves are noxious (e. g., buffalo-chips, straw, and coal-tar, &c.). The 



