1879. | Scientific News. 61 
Territories, has issued its first report on the Rocky Mountain lo- — 
cust, or destructive grasshopper of the West, a volume of 700 
pages, fully illustrated with maps, plates, and woodcuts. 
The favorable predictions made by the commission last winter 
had an encouraging effect, and stimulated the immigration to the 
country of late years ravaged by locusts. The statement whicha 
full survey of the field enabled the commission to make in ad- 
vance, viz: that there would be no serious injury in 1878, has 
been fully verified. The commissioners have continued their la- 
bors during the past summer, confining their attention to that 
soa ls portion of the country which they have designated 
1e Permanent Region, the object being to gather further 
wled of that region, with a view of preventing the ravages 
of the Rocky Mountain locust therein and its migration there- 
from 
The problem of destroying the young insects as they hatch out 
in the more fertile country in the agricultural regions of the 
West, is virtually solved in the report which the commission has 
already issued, and the task which they now undertake is to en- 
deavor $% prevent the migration of the winged insects from the 
Permanent Region into the more thickly settled country. 
n appropriation of $25,000 was asked of the last Congress for 
the completion of the work mapped out, and $10,000 were appro- 
priated, and this only toward the end of the fiscal year. The com- 
missioners ask for an additional sum of $15,000, in order that they 
may be able to revar their investigation until the practical 
work is accomplished. It was too late in the season when the 
last appropriation was obtained to permit the completion of the 
added to the additional appropriation asked for, and with prom- 
ised assistance by the Dominion authorities, they will be enari 
by getting into the field early the coming spring, to complete 
fully the work ee to them.—/vom the Report of the Sa 
of the Interior for 1878 
— A report of the Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory for the 
last summer appears in the Third Annual Report of the John 
Hopkins University, Baltimore. This laboratory was established 
by Prof. W. K. Brooks for the higher instruction of the students 
of the University and others in zoology. It was opened at Fort 
Wool, June 24, 1878, and closed Aug. 19th. Some excellent 
work was accomplished, notwithstanding the lack of the large 
marine animals. Enough was accomplished, we should judge, to 
warrant the authorities of the University in maintaining the 
school and rendering attendance upon it a necessary part of the 
biological course. 
We notice that the following papers in biology were read at the 
meetings of the Scientific Association of the John Hopkins Uni- 
versity: On the early stages in the development of Gastropods, 
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