[8] REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



corresponding difference in the date of their hatching. But while it was possible in 

 February to hatch artificially in thirty-six hours eggs received from the western coun- 

 ties, eggs from Morristowu, Rice County (in a fluid state when received), were Isept 

 nearly three weeks in April before the young appeared. Reports from Carver, Rice, 

 Waseca, Steele, and Freeborn Counties, on the 25th of May, showed that in almostevery 

 case the yonng were just beginning to appear, or that only a small portion of the eggs 

 were as yet hatched. It may be added that in all these counties very little was heard 

 of locusts beyond the mere fact of this late hatching, and that the damage j-esulting 

 therefrom was but trifling. 



Correspondents occasionally note the fact that eggs laid late in the season were 

 correspondingly late in hatching. For example : 



"Penn Township, McLeod County, 



"May2i, 1877. 

 "These that are now hatched are the first laid-eggs, laid in the last week of July, 

 1876. The locusts staid about ten or twelve days and then left. The farmers then 

 said that there were not eggs enojigh to do any hurt, and that they would put in their 

 crops as usual. But in ten days others came, and kept coming, and staid six weeks, 

 laying all the time. These last were young and smaller, and no doubt they made their 

 first deposit of eggs here. These are the ones that have not yet hatched ; they are in 

 the liquid state yet. 



" JACOB KOONS." 



"Lake Prairie, Nicollet County, 



"Mmj 30, 1877. 

 " Eggs deposited in the latter part of September are still unhatched. 



" THOMAS HUGHES." 



The following letter, published in the Waterford Gazette, Dakota County, in 1875, 

 furnishes an account of a favorable opportunity of observing the exact dates of lay- 

 ing and hatching, which were both correspondingly late in the season ; 



" Waterford, July 8, 1875. 

 " On the 18th day of October, 1874, I noticed that grasshoppers had settled upon my 

 farm in Waterford, covering an area not exceeding eight acres. During the last 

 spring and present summer I have carefully watched for the appearance of young 

 hoppers. I discovered none until June 20, 1875. On that day I discovered young 

 hoppers in great numbers on the ground where the old hoppers settled last fall. 



" W. A. GRAY." 



The dampness of the season has also retarded hatching, and prolonged it to an ex- 

 tent not usual in other years. While almost every spring a very limited number of 

 young locusts have been found making their appearance all through the month of 

 June, the greater part of the hatching has generally occurred within a much briefer 

 period than during the past spring; and wherever injury from the unfledged has 

 proved to be serious, it is where the locusts were numerous by the last week of May. 

 But the rain-fali of the past spring, coming as it did in many cases when the egg- 

 pods were in the act of bnrsting, retarded the hatching, and in such places as retained 

 moisture perhaps prevented it altogether. On the 27th of May I found at Montevideo, 

 Chippewa County, a strip of loam, containing perhaps half an acre, where the hatch- 

 ing had begun in the early part of the month, and had been suddenly arrested by rain, 

 and water standing upon the ground overnight. On digging up the egg-pods they 

 were found to be spreading, the young having been arrested just as they were break- 

 ing the shell. The eggs appeared to be lifeless ; but after lying in the warm sun for 

 five minutes a portion of the young came forth, kicked pff their surroundings, and 

 hopped away. A large number of egg-pods, however, were found in a putrid condi- 

 tion, and these had freely attracted the Anthomyia larva, while the fly was observed on 

 the vegetation close by. The eggs of the silky mite and some of the full-grown were 

 found in the same spot. In this case only a limited amount of rain-fall had sufliced 

 to effectually arrest hatching. It may be added that eggs plowed under in the spring 

 in corn-ground remained unhatched until the 21st of June, and, when brought to the 

 surface with a shovel-plow, were apparently lifeless, but hatched within an hour. In 

 either case the locust was able to reach a certain point in the progress of hatching, 

 and was stopped there. Finally, in cases where the ground has become hard by bak- 

 ing under the hot sun, a light rain-shower, followed by a warm sunlight, often seems 

 to assist rather than to hinder hatching. 



PROGRESS DURING THE SPRING. 



By the 12th of May the young locust had appeared in immense numbers in the cen- 

 tral part of the egg-area in those counties which have been already designated as most 

 densely filled with eggs. These comprised a strip of country stretching southeast- 

 ward from the central part of Otter Tail County to Lake Crystal, in Blue Earth 



