[142] REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



of taller grass bordering the wLeat-fields, and in the old wheat-fields the Caloptenus 

 was equally abundant. This variety of Calopienli^ has been identified by Mr. Scudder 

 as Walker's CaUptenus Ulituratas, and I have also compared it with Walker's descrip- 

 tion. Caloptmus blvittutus also is a not uncommon Pacific Coast grasshopper. It occurred 

 at the base of Mount Shasta, Sisson's Ranch. 



September 16. — At San Francisco obtained such information from Messrs. Henry Ed- 

 wards and James Behrens as to lead me to think with the observations that I have 

 myself made that there is no reasonable doubt but that Caloptemis atlanis (and prob- 

 ably C. femur-rnhrum which is often, as I have found, more abundant in some localities 

 in central and northern California than C. atlanis), is the species which has locally devas- 

 tated portions of California, though Camnula pelluoida may occasionally become inju- 

 rious. 



SeptcTiiber 20. — A diligent search in the Yosemite Valley as well as at the grounds 

 about the BigTree Station (Clark's) failed to reveal any traces of C. atlanis; none were 

 seen on the mountains by the valley nor along the roads from Merced to the valley, 

 only a few specimens of (Edipoda, which flourish by the roadsides and dry fields. 

 There was no evidence found to give any grounds for the belief that swarms of the 

 Rocky Mountain locusts have, or ever will, fly over the Sierra Neva<ia from Nevada or 

 the region north. 



September 21. — Thomas Birmingham, a guide at the Big Tree Station, told me that 

 in the San Joaquin Valley in 1856 or 1857 the grasshoppers were very abundant and 

 destructive, eating grains, vegetables, fruit-trees, flying in the face of the traveller, 

 and thus proving annoying. In one case they eat a man's coat. They came in two 

 separate swarms from the south in June and July, after the wheat-harvest was over. 

 Thomas Givens, of Hornitos, told me that in that tovm in 1862 or 1863 a swarm of 

 grasshoppers came from the south, like a white glistening cloud, in June or July. 

 They were observed eating the bark of peach-trees. In April of the present year, 

 young grasshoppers were very abundant near Hornitos, but the subsequent heat and 

 drought destroyed the herbage, so that the grasshoppers disappeared. In 1866 or 1867 

 a swarm fifteen miles wide came from the north, and were so numerous as to fill a well 

 at a locality known as the fifteen-mile house, near Stockton. Mr. W. L. Morton, of 

 Tulare County, told me that in 1869 the grasshopper was abundant in that valley in 

 €th township, 18th east — 2l8t, 6th east. They flew from the southwest, appearing for 

 three weeks, from the last of May till the middle of June ; they eat grape leaves, corn, 

 and wheat. In September they were abundant at Stone Corral, township 16 south, 

 24 east. . , 



September 23. — Mr. J. B. Sears, of Stockton, says that in the year 1858 (?), in the snm- 

 mer, the grasshoppers were abundant, eating garden- vegetables, especially onions, fruit, 

 oak-leaves, &c., but came too late to injure the wheat-crop. Of a number of gentle- 

 men whom I saw none knew of any destructive species of grasshopper in California, and 

 I am inclined to think that the ravages committed by locusts in California at the 

 present day are not of great moment, and are paralleled by the occasional damage 

 done by swarms of the red-legged locusts ( Caloptenus femur-rubrum) in the Atlantic 

 States. 



The results of this journey may be summed up as follows : Definite information was 

 obtained concerning the invasion of Northern Nevada and Eastern Oregon by swarms 

 of the genuine Rocky Mountain locust, and they were traced with a good degree of prob- 

 ability to the Snake River Valley, in the vicinity of Boise City. The western limits of 

 the Rocky Mountain locust were definitely ascertained to be near the meridian of 

 120<^, extending along this line from latitude 58'^ to 37°. It is most probable that while 

 this locust may occasionally, in Washington Territory and Oregon, fly to the eastern 

 flank of the Cascade Range,' and in California as far as the eastern flanks of the Sierra 

 Nevada, swarms never pass over those mountains. 



• The species sometimes destructive in Washington Territory and Oregon, in the forest 

 region west of the Cascade Mountains, and in California, is Caloptemis atlanis and 

 probably, also, in some localities, C. femur-rubrum, both abounding and sometimes de- 

 structive in the Atlantic States. 



NOTE REGARDING VARIATIONS IN CALOPTENUS SPRETUS, ATLANIS, AND FEMUR-RUBRUM. 



As Caloptenus atlanis and femur-rubrum occurred in abundance in Upper California, 

 and the former in Oregon and Washington Territory and Vancouver Island, I have 

 made the following comparisons between the specimens from different points in the 

 Pacific States and individuals from the Atlantic States. 



C. atlanis $ from Portland and Oregon compared. — W^hile atlanis frova Portland, Oreg., 

 arc normal, those from Wallula, in size and length of wing, approach C. spretus, though 

 they still differ, the markings and colors being like atlanis. 



* Measurements. 



C. spretus i'\ from Salt Lake, length of body and wings (folded), 3H, 33^ ; wings 

 23^, 25 ; hind femora, 13^"^">. 



