REPORT. 



Saint Paul, Minnesota, ) 

 December 23d, 1876. \ 



Prof. N. H. Winchell, State Geologist : 



Sir: — I have the honor to present the following report upon the 

 Rocky Mountain Locust,* as it has appeared in and near Minneso- 

 ta during the year 1876. At the time of my appointment (in 

 May) to make this report, through the State Geological Survey, 

 there was a hope, and apparently a reasonable one, that the com- 

 ing summer would close our present opportunities for observing 

 the destructive species of locust, at least as far as our state was 

 concerned. The insects were found to be hatching in a region 

 covering the whole or parts of five or six of our southwestern 

 counties, in a strip of country reaching from Madelia westward 

 across the state, and into two of the eastern counties of Dakota. 

 A few were also found in the northern part of the state in Clay 

 county, and in a few scattered spots in Dakota along the Red 

 river. No other hatching-ground nearer than Colorado was known, 

 and there was reason to believe that the amount of damage result- 

 ing from their presence here would be comparatively small, and a 

 fair probability that their swarms would be so scattered and so di- 



* The name "Rocky Mountain Locust" is expressed or implied through- 

 out this report. I suppose that every one knows that it is the Caloptenus 

 Spretus, or the "grasshopper," that is referred to. Although the name 

 "hopper" holds its place in popular usage, by force of its brevity <»nd eu- 

 phony, the use of the word locust can occasion no ambiguity, at least in 

 Minnesota. In regard to the latter name, an old etymology is still often 

 repeated, which has done duty long enough. The word locust (Latin, locns- 

 ta,) is not derived from the Latin locits-ustus, a burnt place, and that for 

 half a dozen reasons. The root of the word (loc) is probably found in the 

 Greek root lak (in lasko, e-lok-on,) and in the Latin loqu-or, referring in 

 this ca-e to the chirping or shrilling sound of some insect called locusta. 

 Its form is confirmed by such Latin words as robustus, venustus, &c. See 

 Fick, Comparative Dictionary of the Indo Germanic Language, rart IV, Hoot 

 <3.) 



