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before section I of the American Association for the Advancement of | 
Science. 
During the present summer (1891), and especially during the past six weeks, the 
papers have contained numerous reports concerning serious grasshopper ravages in 
various parts of the country, in some cases the reports being quite sensational and 
well calculated to create apprehension as to the safety of our crops and as to the 
possibility of serious locust devastation this fall or next year. I have felt that per- 
haps afew words indicating the exact state of the case and summarizing the investi- 
gations made, whether by agents of the Department or others, will be of service in 
giving our farmers the true condition of things. While, from the investigations 
made a year ago and the reports of locust injury it did not seem probable that there 
could be very much foundation for the reports of the present year, I deemed it quite 
desirable to endeavor to ascertain the facts as closely as possible. Accordingly Prof. 
Lawrence Bruner was instructed to examine fully the regions in the northwestern 
States where the injuries were reported, and he has been over eastern Colorado, 
eastern and North Dakota, western Minnesota, and portions of Montana and Wyo-_ 
ming. Prof. Herbert Osborn was instructed to visit the western parts of Kansas and 
investigate the southwestern portion of the State, examining all localities from 
which any reports of injury could be obtained. Prof. F. H. Snow and Prof. E. A. 
Popenoe, on behalf of the State authorities in Kansas, thoroughly examined the 
section of country in southeast Colorado, passing over the country embraced in 
northern Kansas, and thus connecting the territory covered by Professors Bruner 
and Osborn, so that it may be stated that the plains region from northern Minnesota 
west to Montana and south to the Arkansas River, has been pretty thoroughly exam- 
ined. Mr. Nathan Banks was instructed to visit south Texas and New Mexico to 
inquire into the reports of injury in those sections. 
It may be stated in brief that the depredations in eastern and southeastern Colo- 
rado have been due to the exceptional multiplication of the Long-winged Locust 
(Dissosteira longipennis). This species always occurs in that section, and some of the 
first insects which I collected in Colorado on my first visit in 1867, were of this 
Species, and are now in the National Collection. It has never yet been reported in 
such immense and injurious numbers, and its work the present year furnishes 
another illustration of the fact that we never know when a species that has hitherto 
been looked upon as harmless may become seriously injurious to agriculture. Dur- 
ing the latter part of July millions of pupe and full-grown larve of this species 
were found ranging over large areas of eastern and southeastern Colorado, moving 
in vast bodies all the way from Akron to the Arkansas River to the south. The 
insects moved in a body in various directions, choosing, as Prof. Bruner reports, the 
roads for their line of march rather than the prairies. Normally this species fre- 
quents partially bare hill slopes and plains where the grasses are scant, and Prof. 
Bruner’s view of the matter is that the past few years have been favorable to its 
excessive multiplication, but that during the present year the exceptionally heavy 
rains which have occurred in that region have caused an unusually abundant 
growth of grasses and other vegetation, and the locusts have been compelled to 
move in search of more open country and have frequented the roads, upon which 
they congregated and which they followed in vast bodies. He found, in going some 
distance away from the roadways, where the vegetation was at all rank, that but 
few insects were found. This species, in size and length of wing, much more closely 
resembles the migratory and destructive species of Europe and some other countries 
than does the Rocky Mountain Locust (Caloptenus spretus), and there seems to be no 
particular reason why, at times, it should not become destructive and fly in vast 
swarms from one locality to another. So far as past experience justifies calculation, 
however, it will not do so, and] think there is little reason to fear any continued 
and widespread injury from this species. 
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