458 EEPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



In 1875, as we have already seen, they were again troublesome in 

 Massachusetts and Illinois, while the August and September issue of 

 the Monthly Report of tlie Department of Agriculture gives a record of 

 their iujuries in Kew Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Vir- 

 ginia, Ohio, Michigan, and Tennessee. 



In 1876, locust ravages were again reported in many sections of the 

 country, and the American Acridium was especially observed. 



Finally, last year (1877), the destruction of field-crops was extensively 

 reported, particularly in the northern tier of States includiug ]S"ew 

 Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and Michigan. Specimens received 

 from various sources showed that the Eed-legged and the Lesser locusts 

 were the principal culprits. We quote a few items taken from the many 

 published at the time of injury : 



They are having a genuine grasshopper scare in Michigan, and a dispatch to the 

 New York Herald of July 6 reports that the pests have destroyed about four thousand 

 acres of grain in Oakland and Ionia Counties, and the farmers are in despair. The 

 grasshoppers are not, however, the genuine Rocky Mountain species, which, as yet, 

 have never crossed the Mississippi River ; but they are the common Northern red-legged 

 grasshoppers, which sometimes become so abundant as to do considerable damage to 

 crops. Many of the farmers in the afflicted counties named will, no doubt, believe 

 that the " hatefuls of the far West are upon them, in spite of all the soothing words 

 of entomologists to the contrary.— [jKwraZ New YorJcet' of July 14, 1877. 



The. grasshoppers have so far destroyed the feed in some pastures near Saint Albans, 

 Vt., that the farmers have been obliged to commence feeding their cattle with hay. 

 Several are mowing their oat-crop for fodder or drying it for winter use. Corn-stalks 

 are eaten cff by the pests, and unless wet weather sets in it seems inevitable that they 

 will destroy most of the unharvested crops and the fall feed.— IWestern Farm Journal, 

 August 17, 1877. 



In North Hero, grasshoppers are doing much injury to beans, oats, and buckwheat. — 

 \_Mirror and Farmer, Manchester, N. H., August 11, 1877. 



We are informed by a farmer resident in Northern New York, that the grasshoppers 

 have committed irreparable injury to the growing crops in that section, thus blighting 

 the prospects of a bountiful harvest. They first attacked the grass, and when that 

 was cut they assailed the oats and orchards, utterly ruining them, and are now rapidly 

 destroying the corn and potatoes. There is no barrier to their ravages, and the only 

 hope is in their onward progress. This gentleman thinks that this plague will reach 

 New Hampshire by another year, as it has already appeared in Vermont. The only 

 precaution that can be taken is in the character of the crops, and unfortunately there 

 are few crops they do not assail. Thus far, the growing wheat in Northern New York 

 has been exempt from their ravages. — \_Na8hua Telegraph. 



We have seen in the valley of the Merrimack this summer fields in which the grass- 

 hoppers had cut the grass as clean and close as a flock of sheep would have done, and 

 fields of beans and oats in which every leaf had been devoured. — \_Mirror and Farmer j 

 August 18, 1877. 



I send you specimens of grasshoppers which are very destructive in this immediate 

 neighborhood the present season. 



The pests were first discovered about the 10th of May, on low meadow land subject 

 to overflow. They were at that time not more than one-eighth to one-quarter of an 

 inch long, and then rather of a dark or muddy-green color, a large portion of them 

 changing to a yellow and brown-yellow color as they grew. They are now, a large 

 portion of them, one to two inches long. What are they — the common meadow grass 

 hopper, or a new species ? 



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