APPE]¥DIX XI. 



DATA FROM BEITISH AMERICA. 



[Tbe notes and data collected during a trip made to Manitoba in August and Sep- 

 tember, 1877, by Mr. Riley, have been embodied in the main report. The Province was 

 remarkably free from the insects, and parties whom we met and who had traveled in 

 early summer from Battleford and from Montana reported the same freedom from the 

 insect throughout the country to the northwest and southwest. The information col- 

 lected for past years agrees precisely with the report of Prof. G. M. Dawson and with 

 what is given in Chapter II. The prevailing winds, as we learned from Mr. J. Stewart, 

 signal officer at Winnipeg, are from the south in May and June, and from the north 

 and northwest in July, August, and during the autumn. The insects come into the 

 Province either from the south, sometimes as early as the latter part of June, but gener- 

 ally in July, or from the west and southwest later. Those which breed there leave in 

 July, August, and September, almost always towards the south and southeast. They 

 have exceptionally reached as far east as Fort Francis, on Rainy Lake, in Keewatin. 

 We deem the following items of sufficient interest to go on record.] 



Although the locust-hatch of 1877 has been almost unprecedented in extent, the ex- 

 emption of Manitoba and the plains extending westwardly in British America has 

 been established by a general concurrence of testimony. The exodus of last year from 

 the Northwest Territory was so directly south and southeast as to turn the western 

 flank of this province, and we are glad to believe that there has been and will be no 

 return. The plague has passed, and we are informed that Montana and the whole 

 Missouri Valley, at least as far as Bismarck, have enjoyed a similar exemption. The 

 immense masses incubated in Minnesota, after much oscillation, departed southeast ; 

 but as yet we have no information where they have gone. The American x^ress is 

 greatly puzzled to solve this mystery which every day increases. The present proba- 

 bility IS that the insects, harassed and debilitated by the attacks of ichneumon flies, 

 their natural enemies, have not sufficient vitality for reproduction, and that the innu- 

 merable hosts of the sky will scatter and perish, leaving not an egg behind. This 

 natural limitation of the scourge has been greatly aided by the " beastly weather," 

 especially the cold and heavy rains, which have excited so much senseless malediction 

 during the early part of the season. How seldom we penetrate the disguises which 

 mask the blessings of Providence. * * * 



The settlements along the North Saskatchewan are exempted by adequate summer 

 rains from the necessity of irrigation — a fact not only suggestive of capacity to sus- 

 tain a dense agricultural population, but adverse to the generation of the locust. He 

 may migrate thither, although there is no record of his ravages north of Fort Carlton, 

 but the more arid districts southward must be explored for his original breeding- 

 grounds. The conditions of his genesis may exist for a district as large as Belgium, 

 near and north of the international frontier, but tenfold that area will be found in 

 the Mauvaises Terres of Dakota and Nebraska, and the sterile plains of Wyoming and 

 Montana— a region as large as France. It is satisfactory to know that this extensive 

 district was fully depleted of the adult insect by southeast flights in 1876, and we 

 welcome the exemption from return flights in 1877 as a guarantee that a considerable 

 cycle of years will elapse before natural agencies will suffer the great evil to be repro- 

 duced. — [ Winnejjeg Standard, September 10, 1877. 



Last year but few localities in the Northwest Territories were free from the locust, 

 either hatched or as a foreigner. This applies to the belt of country extending from 

 the Rocky Mountains to the Red River settlements and lying south of the South Branch 

 of Saskatchewan River. West of the Red Deer River (a branch of the South Branch, 

 109^ west longtitude, 51° north latitude) the branch is found on both sides of the river. 

 A small district lying east of the confluence of the South and North Branches and 

 south of the main stream is also free from the visits of locusts. Here farming is ex- 

 tensively and successfully carried on. These facts being pretty constant, it is easy to 

 draw a line on a map of the country showing the northern limits of the locust. 



As far as I can make out, only a small brood was hatched in the hills, on the high- 

 lands about a mile from the fort. They were not dense. They occupied a piece of 

 ground about one-fourth mile in length and about ICO yards in width. This was on 

 the 1st of August. They soon disappeared. 



I was not at this post last year, and can get very little reliable information about the 

 [10 G] [145] 



