224 
although eaten, were less to their liking ; mulberry trees growing in the 
midst of other trees that had been defoliated entirely escaped their 
ravages. Peach and walnut trees had been completely defoliated. 
Locust trees {Pseudacacia robinia) were great favorites, and wherever 
one of these trees grew in the infested district it bore, almost without 
exception, evidences of having been visited by the grasshoppers, which 
not only devoured the leaves, but also the bark on the smaller twigs. 
The leaves of hickory and oak trees growing along or in the cultivated 
fields were also eaten, but the insects did not occur in the more central 
portion of the woodlands, showing an evident preference for the open 
fields. 
The leaves of the cultivated sunflower had been considerably eaten ; 
also the strap-leaves of the flowers, but the seeds had not been touched. 
The leaves of cotton plants had also been eaten, but not to any great 
extent; the smaller twigs in several instances had been completely 
girdled. The leaves of sumac trees and those of the Virginia, creeper 
had been considerably eaten. 
It was repeatedly noticed that the low-growing cultivated plants 
had almost completely escaped their ravages. Melon and pumpkin 
vines, sweet and Irish potatoes, as well as garden truck of all kinds, 
were remarkably exempt. The same is also true of the weeds growing 
in and around the cultivated fields, with the single exception of the 
rag-weed {Ambrosia trijida) 7 which was somewhat eaten by them. The 
other, kinds, such as Spanish-needles (Bidens frondosa), knot- weed 
{Polygonum aviculare), smartweed {Polygonum pennsylvanicum), James- 
town weed {Datura strajnonium), and sand-briar {Solanum carolinense), 
were scarcely at all eaten. The grasshoppers in all stages sometimes 
congregated in large numbers in low places in wheat stubble overgrown 
with weeds; still the latter showed no traces of having been eaten. In 
such places the only plants which gave evidences of having been eaten 
to any extent were the young plants of volunteer wheat, and these had 
been gnawed down until scarcely a vestige of them remained. Even 
the grass growing in such places had not been molested. 
Miilet had been somewhat eaten, but where this grew by the side of 
a field of corn it was plainly to be seen that the leaves of the latter 
were preferred to those of the millet. The grasshoppers did not appear 
to attack the heads of the millet, confining their attention solely to 
the leaves; and, so far as observed, they had not succeeded in com- 
pletely destroying a single field, although the yield of several fields had 
been considerably reduced as a result of their attacks, ^Nor had they, 
so far as observed, completely destroyed a single field of corn. In the 
majority of instances the corn in the ear was too far advanced to be 
seriously injured by the loss of the leaves. The greatest loss, therefore, 
will be in the fodder, since in this section the farmers depend largely 
on their corn as food for the cattle during the winter season, and this 
will have lost much of its value from having been stripped of its leaves. 
