92 



slightest touch or may fall off of its own weight. After drying there 

 are no soft parts left, but only a hollow skeleton throughout. The body 

 fluids before death are, sometimes at least, literally crowded with 

 germs. In one case, for example, the hind femur of a sick hopper 

 that was still able to move about was cut across and the moist muscle 

 wiped on a cover-glass, which showed the bacilli as abundant as the red 

 corpuscles in a person's blood. Numerous cultures in agar were made 

 from this and other hoppers in different stages of the disease, but in all 

 cases cultures were obtained exactly resembling those of Bacterium 

 termo. and we could isolate no other organism that would kill the hop- 

 pers when fed back to them. This close resemblance of these germs to 

 termo led me to carry on a series of parallel experiments with these 

 cultures and pure cultures of termo from beef broth. It was found 

 that either germ sprayed on alfalfa and fed to healthy hoppers would 

 kill inside of forty-eight hours, and if directly inoculated by needle 

 thrusts into the bodies of the grasshoppers either would kill inside of 

 twenty four hours, while none would die in check cages where the 

 insects received similar thrusts with sterilized needles. These results 

 with termo alone were of much interest to me, as they suggest a possi- 

 ble new use of this, the most beneficial of all the Schizomycetes. 



Insects reared from the dead grasshoppers. — It was common to find 

 small maggots in the putrid bodies of hoppers that had been some time 

 dead, but no such thing was found in the bodies of the sick hoppers 

 that were still alive. I give below a list of the Diptera and Hymen- 

 optera bred from the dead hoppers. The Diptera were determined by 

 Mr. Coquillett. and the Hymenoptera by Mr. Ashmead. Mr. Coquillett 

 also wrote, in reply to a question from me. that he did not think the 

 Diptera could have been parasitic, but that they probably fed upon the 

 dead bodies of the grasshoppers. 



The Diptera were — 



Sarcopliaga cimbicis Town., 

 Sarcopliaga sarracenhv Biley, 

 Sarcopliaga, sp. 

 Pyrtoneura stabtilq,ns Fall.. 

 Helicobia Jielicis Town. 



The Hymenoptera were — 



Aphcvreta muscce Ash., 

 Perilampus sp. 



CONCLUDING EEMAEKS. 



From my work and observations with the grasshopper disease I feel 

 warranted in drawing the following conclusions: 



1. That the grasshoppers have died in large numbers of some bacterial 

 disease in Colorado during the summers of 1895 and 1896. 



2. That the disease is most prevalent in a wet time and upon low 

 ground. 



