APPEI^BIX X 



NARRATIVE OF A SECOl^D JOURNEY MADE IN THE SUM- 

 MER OF 1877, BY A. S. PACKARD, JR. 



August 6. — Left Salem, Mass., to attend the first Chicago meeting of the Commission, 

 held August 8 and 9. 



August 10. — At Schuyler, on the Union Pacific Railroad, the locust {Caloptenus spre- 

 ttts) was thick, rising in great numbers from the grass, being frightened by the cars ; 

 they flew vigorously, and had no appearance of being weary. They were common 

 from this point to Richland, being in one locality very abundant. None were seen be- 

 yond this point. 



August 11. — Breakfasted at Sidney, Nebr., at 5 a. m. I saw small sage-bushes (Arfe- 

 rmsiu), and we were evidently near the eastern limits of the plains, which is probably 

 from 50 to 75 miles east of Sidney. At Pine Blufis I saw a herder who said that no 

 swarms of locusts had been seen there, only a few grasshoppers flying about the plains. 

 At Cheyenne saw Mr. Doboin, the United States weather-observer, who said that no 

 locusts had been seen flying in that vicinity. 



August 12. — ^At Echo City a good many thousand locusts (C spretus) were seen 

 flying in the air and resting on the ground. Those flying were observed to be moving 

 eastward up the cafion with the gentle west wind, while there were others to be seen 

 flying in an opposite course. It was very warm, the thermometer in the car being 

 88°. Myriads of them were seen in the grass toward the 1000-mile tree, but just before 

 reaching the tree almost none were to be seen in the air or on the ground, showing 

 how local the swarm was. At Weber, though there were extensive fields of wheat and 

 oats, mostly, however, harvested, only one or two locusts were seen. None were ob- 

 served at Ogden, where the young were so abundant in June, but two or three miles 

 south of the town a few were seen along the Utah Central Railroad. 



August 13. — ^No locusts in sufficient numbers to attract attention have been observed 

 in or about Salt Lake City, as I was informed by the United States weather-observer, 

 and by Mr. Balfoot, the curator of the Salt Lake museum. Dr. E. Palmer and Mr. A. 

 L. Siler also told me that none had been observed by them in Central or Southern 

 Utah. 



August 14.— At Lake Point, 20 miles west of Salt Lake City, on the shores of Great 

 Salt Lake, the locust ( C spretus) occurred in abundance, but not in much larger num- 

 bers than another species associated with it, in the moist land and tall grass bordering 

 a field where wheat had been harvested, and which had been irrigated. None were 

 seen pairing or laying eggs. 



August 15. — ^Visited the American Fork Canon, but found no locusts in the caBon, the 

 only grasshopper being a species of (Edipoda. On my return, however, locusts (C. spre- 

 tus) were seen flying about the edge of wheat-fields at Sandy, in much greater abund- 

 ance than at Lake Point. 



August 17. — While on the train I met Mr. C. C. Wheeler, of Cornucopia, Nev., 

 who got on at Grolconda, and who gave me some valuable data regarding the swarms 

 of locusts which have this year for the first time in the knowledge of the settlers in- 

 vaded the northern limits of Nevada and Southeastern Oregon. From his account 

 the species could have been no other than Caloptenus spretus. He said that the locust 

 was very abundant and destructive to crops in the Bruneau Valley, Idaho, southwest 

 of Boise City. (I had previously heard that locusts had hatched out in abundance in 

 the spring at Boise City.) The 2d of August they were observed at the upper or south- 

 west portion of the Bruneau Valley. On the 5th and 6th of August, they appeared in 

 Nevada, flying in great swarms, eating up the crops and filling a well in one locality, 

 in the Owyhee Valley, seven miles northwest of Cornucopia, Nev. (Cornucopia is 

 situated 30 miles south of the Idaho line.) Mr. Wheeler had never heard of them 

 before and did not know where they came from. (It seems most probable that these 

 locusts came from the Bruneau Valley, in the neighborhood of Boise City, the distance 

 from Cornucopia to the Bruneau Valley being only about 100 miles in a northeast 

 direction. Mr. Wheeler also said that the cricket {Andbrus) was very destructive in 

 Northern Nevada. He observed them August 16 and 17 laying their eggs in the sand 

 on the road between Cornucopia and Winnemucca. In 1876 they devoured about 



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