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CAPABILITIES WITH REFERENCE TO SETTLEMENT. 305 
regions of the Rocky Mountains, and issuing from their vallies and 
candns, spread eastward over the plains. It seems, however, to be now 
very generally conceded, that the high and dry plains along the whole 
eastern base of the mountains, are their chief breeding places; to which in 
British America may, I believe, be added the entire area of the Lignite 
Tertiary plateau, and probably also the greater part of the third great 
prairie steppe. | 
719. The range of the insect (meaning by that term not only their 
chief breeding places, but the whole area known at one time or other to 
be overrun by them) is not bounded to the west by the Rocky Mountains, 
-except where these constitute, as in British America, the unbroken front 
of the western region of forest. They spread across the watershed in 
Colorado and Utah, and appear to have been observed by Mr. Byers in 
the valley of the South Fork of the Columbia River, near Fort Hall. 
Southward, according to Prof. Thomas, they extend as far as the Raton 
Mountains and into Texas; while to the east they have spread to the 
prairie country of the Mississippi, and have been known, on more than 
one occasion, to penetrate far into Iowa. The entire Province of Mani- 
toba is liable to their incursions, and they have penetrated in swarms as 
far east as the Lake of the Woods. Northward, they are probably only 
limited by the line of the coniferous forest, which approximately follows 
the North Saskatchewan River. 
720. The eggs of the locust are not deposited promiscuously, or 
uniformly distributed over the surface ; whether in their native breeding 
places or in their eastern colonies. High and dry situations, with hard 
soil, are preferred. Thus, when the young are hatched, from this original 
disposition of the eggs—and no doubt also from a natural gregarious ten- 
dency—they form colonies, which are often widely separated. These I 
have seen on the third prairie plateau in 1874, and the young insects 
are also noticed to be thus distributed in the Red River country this 
year,* and elsewhere, wherever they have been carefully observed. 
The insects do not seem to travel far from their hatching place for 
some days; but when they have increased somewhat in size, begin 
to move forward together, and in a determinate direction, though 
not by any means invariably from north-west to south-east. Dr. 
Studley, of Kansas, has experimented on the unfledged grasshoppers, 
by sifting flour on them in the morning, and measuring the distance 
travelled over by the insects so marked at night; and finds that 

* Fide A. L. Russell, 

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