APPENDIX IX. NAERATIVE OF PACKARD'S FIRST JOURNEY. [137] 



each locust year enjoyed an immunity from their attacks. Dr. Lamme told mo that 

 the unfledged locusts travel southward, going in the same general course as the winged 

 ones take afterward. , 



Mr. P. W. Macadow not only gave me important facts about former locust years in 

 Montana, but informed me that he had that day been told by Messrs. Malin and John 

 Johnson, who had just arrived from the Yellowstone Valley from Baker's battle- 

 ground, that locusts were reported as having hatched out in great numbers there, 

 and all the way from Froze-to-Death Creek to Baker's battle-ground, near the mouth 

 of Clark's Fork, on the north bank of the Yellowstone River, in the Bad Lands. This 

 tract of country is about ninety miles in length, and the western limits of the area lie 

 about one hundred miles due east of Fort Ellis, Mont. Between this point and Fort 

 Ellis none were observed by Messrs. Malin and Johnson. I was informed, however, 

 by General Brisbin, that unfledged locusts were observed this spring by several Army 

 officers who were fishing at a point 18 miles east of Fort Ellis over the Big Belt Mount- 

 ains. This locality was on the Yellowstone River, just east of the mouth of Shields 

 River. Mr. Macfarlane also informed me that he saw no locusts this spring in the 

 region lying between Yellowstone River, near the Crow agency, and Summit Creek, 

 which empties into the Musselshell River, a region about 30 miles in extent. (From 

 these data, and taking into account the universally western course taken by the 

 swarms from the Upper Yellowstone Valley, it is most probable that the locusts which 

 appeared about Bozeman and Gallatin City late in the summer of 1877 came from the 

 vicinity of Baker's battle-ground.) 



June 19. — Rode from Bozeman to Helena, without seeing any locusts by the way. 

 None had hatched out this spring in the Jefferson, Gallatin, or Madison Valleys near 

 where they unite to form the Missouri River. 



June 20 and 21. — Examined the plains about Helena, without finding any locusts (C. 

 spretus.) 



June 22 and 23. — Saw no locusts along the road from Helena to Fort Benton, and found 

 that none were seen by residents, though this region is nearly every year more or less 

 devastated by them. 



At Fort Benton, Mr. J. J. Healy, of Sun River Settlements, told me that locusts 

 hatched at Fort McLeod (Fort McLeod is situated, in longitude 113° 35', about 30 

 miles north of the United States boundary line, and about 180 miles northwest of Fort 

 Benton) in February, 1877, the weather then being very warm, but the young were 

 afterwards destroyed by the inclement weather. 



Mr. James M. Amoux, of Fort Benton, who has a ranch on Highwood Creek, gave 

 me many valuable facts. The locust has appeared in the vicinity of Fort Benton and 

 Highwood Creek, each year from 1873 to 1876. The young hatch out in April and May, 

 and when winged fly in a southwesterly direction ; the swarms always coming from 

 the northeast, and departing in a southwesterly direction. In June and early in July, 

 1876, large swarms flew from the region lying between Fort Benton and a point 400 

 miles north in a due east course, an exception to the ordinary rule. From Belknap, a 

 point in British America from 96 to 100 miles north of Fort Benton, and from the region 

 about Fort Browning, 150 miles northeast of Fort Benton, all hatched out and flew at 

 the end of June and early in July, 1876, toward the east ; very heavy swarms having 

 come from an easterly direction in 1875 and deposited their eggs. 



Mr. J. J. Healy tells me that he saw locusts at Battle River in British America. This 

 valley lies just south of and also upon the fifty- third parallel of latitude, and is the 

 most northern point to which the locust has been traced. From his conversation and 

 evident familiarity with the locust in Montana, I have little doubt but that the species 

 he observed was Caloptenus spretus, 



Mr. Arnoux also told me that the locusts in 1876 extended from 250 to 300 miles 

 north by west, toward Fort Edmonton in British America (Fort Edmonton is on the 

 North Saskatchewan River, and is a little west of the one hundred and thirteenth me- 

 ridian ; this is the Northernmost point of the locust area that I have been able to as- 

 certain on this journey). Mr. Amoux also stated that the greater number of locusts 

 breed from eighty to one hundred miles north of Fort Benton. That snow does not 

 always kill the unfledged locusts is shown by Mr. Arnoux's statement that May 24, 

 187(), there fell a foot of snow, but the young locusts were not destroyed. 



Lieut. C. A. Booth, United States Army, of Fort Shaw, told me that he saw plenty 

 of grasshoppers (? C. spretus) along the Yellowstone River in the summer of 1876, 

 though they did not occur in swarms. 



June 24.— Left Fort Benton in the steamer Red Cloud for Bismarck. Capt. W. R. 

 Massie, in command of the steamer, told me that unfledged locusts were seen by him 

 all the way between Bismarck and the Black Hills in June, 1876. 



June 25. — ^No locusts were to be seen at any of the landing-places along the river. 



June 26.— Passed Fort Peck at 5 a. m. and Wolf Point at 11.30 a. m. Mr. S. S. Hughes, 

 acting Indian agent at Wolf Point, which is 45 miles in a straight line east from 

 Fort Peck, stated that locusts hatched at Wolf Point the last of May, 1876, and that 

 June 20, 1876, swarms of locusts came from the east. The present season large swarms, 

 like masses of clouds, arrived June 18 from a point due east ; some were seen on the 



