[138] REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



21st on the ground, having either dropped by the way or been forced back by the west 

 wind ; but none hatched in the vicinity of Fort Peck or Wolf Point this spring. The 

 weather June 26th was cold and rainy, the wind being easterly. I was told by Mr. 

 Hughes that a great deal of rain had fallen about the Istof June at Wolf Point — more 

 than for two months previous. 



June 27. — Wind still east ; cool and rainy. No locusts were seen at a point 20 miles 

 above Fort Berthold. I was told that locusts were seen flying at the end of June or 

 early in July, 1876, at Strawberry Island, 140 miles east of the Dakota State line, at 

 Fort Buford. None were seen this year. They occurred at this point, sometimes in 

 swarms, in 1873, 1874, and 1875. 



Arrived at Bismarck at 11 a. m. Locusts were first seen at Bismarck June 21, 1877, 

 early in the morning, having probably descended the afternoon or night previous ; 

 they came from the southeast, said my informant, Col. G. W. Sweet. Col. W. 

 Thompson also told me that the locusts arrived here June 21 from a point almost 

 directly southeast, the wind being southeast. They afterward departed in a south- 

 westerly direction, beginning their flight about noon. He also said that July 1-5, 

 1876, myriads of locusts passed over Bismarck, in a southeasterly direction, toward 

 Minnesota, having come off the plains about Bismarck. Colonel Thompson thinks 

 that the locusts breed on the elevated, dry plains. The blackbird and " snowbird " 

 destroy large numbers of locusts and nearly protect his crops. He also " fights " the 

 winged locust by drawing ropes over the fields of wheat, to which brush is attached 

 at intervals of four feet ; and thus, by the aid of birds and the use of the brush, he is 

 not afraid of losing his crops. He is decidedly of the opinion that in migrating the 

 locusts if detained by a head wind wait for a fair one. 



I observed on the afternoon of the day I arrived at Bismarck a few locusts (C 

 spretiis) in the streets, and especially on the plains about the town. On opening the 

 bodies of twenty females it was found that the eggs were not in any case ripe, but 

 only developed one-third or one-half of their full size, indicating that the females 

 would not lay their eggs probably for two or three weeks. One of the twenty females 

 opened contained a maggot of Tachina, which had rendered her sterile, the eggs being 

 undeveloped, 



June 30. — Detained near Crystal Springs, a station on the Northern Pacific Railroad, 

 over thirty hours by the heavy rains from the east, which caused heavy washouts. At 

 this point I saw two or three locusts (C spretus). 



At Jamestown (Fort Seward) I was told that locusts flew over the settlement from 

 the southeast June 18-20. A few only were seen. 



A fellow- traveler, Mr. Davis, just in from the Black Hills, says that locusts were 

 observed flying toward the west at Be'lle Fourche, and on the Spearfisb River, in the 

 Black HHls. 



I observed that the true plains rather than the prairies extended from Bismarck to 

 near the Red River of the North. What prairie-land I observed was confined to the 

 river-bottoms. No locusts were heard of east of Jamestown. At midnight crossed the 

 Red River into the wooded country of Minnesota. 



July 1.— Arrived at Brainerd, crossing the Mississippi River at 6 a. m., and, July 5, 

 reached Salem, Mass. 



As the result of this journey the Commission were able to announce that there were 

 no unfledged locusts in a very extensive region of the Northwest, comprising large 

 portions of Montana, Dakota, and also British America for about 250 miles north of 

 the Upper Missouri, a region bounded on the north by the North Saskatchewan River. 

 As this region, together with the Yellowstone Valley, is usually the great breeding- 

 ground of the Rocky Mountain locust, the Commission felt authorized, from the state of 

 things there and in Wyoming and Colorado, to predict that there would be no invasion 

 of the border States from Texas to Minnesota in the summer and autumn, which would 

 necessarily insure an immunity from the attacks of young locusts, at least in 1878. 

 It was also ascertained that in the tracts of country in Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, where 

 eggs were laid the year previous, and unfledged locusts were observed in greater or less 

 numbers, that the 'cold, heavy rains of April and May, and the parasites, had, as in 

 the Mississippi border States, so materially reduced their numbers as to render them 

 powerless to do material harm, except in Cache and Malade Valleys in Northern Utah, 

 while serious local damage was committed by them in Bitter Root Valley, Montana. 

 Besides this, much information regarding the occurrence of the locust in the territo- 

 ries visited and the northern limits of the locust in British America, was obtained 

 either personally or from residents or travelers. It seems now probable that the locust 

 ranges as far north as latitude T 2° or 53° ; in Battle River Valley, situated south of the 

 North Saskatchewan River and in approximate longitude 109°-111°, and also near 

 Fort Edmonton, which is situated on the North Saskatchewan, in latitude 53° 30' and 

 longitude 113° 40' (approximate). Besides this, much information regarding the phys- 

 ical geography of the country traveled over was obtained, bearing especially on the 

 nature of the breeding-grounds of the locust, which seem to be confined rather to the 

 fertile river-bottoms and warm hill-sides overlooking them, than to the elevated, ari4, 

 cooler table-lands, where farms can perhaps never be maintained. 



