THE DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 375 



Alsine grcmlandica Fenzl., Potentilla tridentata Ait., Vaccinium Vitis- 

 Idcea Linn., V. uliginosum Linn., Empetrum nigrum Linn." 



26. Melanoplus femur-rubrum Stal. This species is wide-spread and 

 destructive; it is found over all the portions of the United States lying 

 east of the Rocky Mountains, excepting perhaps those bordering the 

 Gulf of Mexico. In New Hampshire it ascends to the tops of the high- 

 est mountains, being common in both the alpine and sub-alpine zones. 

 It has at times migrated in swarms like its congener, M. spretus, one of 

 the most devastating of all insects. "The southern and western parts of 

 New Hampshire," says Dr. Harris, in his treatise on injurious insects, 

 "have been overrun by swarms of these grasshoppers, and have suffered 

 more or less from their depredations." Dr. True gives the following 

 account of their ravages in Pownal (Cumberland county). Me., about half 

 a century ago : 



During the haying season the weather was dry and hot, and these hungry locusts 

 stripped the leaves from the clover and herds-grass, leaving nothing but the naked 

 stems. In consequence, the hay crop was seriously diminished in value. So ravenous 

 had they become that they would attack clover, eating it into shreds. Rake and pitch- 

 fork handles, made of white ash, and worn to a glossy smoothness by use, would be 

 found nibbled over by them if left within their reach. 



As soon as the hay was cut, and they had eaten every living thing from the ground, 

 they removed to the adjacent crops of grain, completely stripping the leaves ; climbing 

 the naked stalks, they would eat off the stems of wheat and rye just below the head, 

 and leave them to drop to the ground. I well remember assisting in sweeping a large 

 cord over the heads of wheat after dark, causing the insects to drop to the ground, 

 where most of them would remain during the night. During harvest time it was my 

 painful duty, with a younger brother, to pick up the fallen wheat heads for threshing ; 

 they amounted to several bushels. 



Their next attack was upon the Indian corn and potatoes. They stripped the leaves 

 and ate out the silk from the corn, so that it was rare to harvest a full ear. Among 

 forty or fifty bushels of corn spread out in the corn-room, not an ear could be found 

 not mottled with detached kernels. 



While these insects were more than usually abundant in the town generally, it was 

 in the field I have described that they appeared in the greatest intensity. After they 

 had stripped everything from the field, they began to emigrate in countless numbers. 

 They crossed the highway and attacked the vegetable garden. I remember the curious 

 appearance of a large, flourishing bed of red onions, whose tops they first literally ate 

 up, and, not content with that, devoured the interior of the bulbs, leaving the dry 

 external covering in place. The provident care of my mother, who covered the bed 



