40 



The Rocky Mountain Locust. 



brace the entire States of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas, 

 and portions of Wyoming, Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, 

 Missouri, New Mexico, Indian Territory and Texas. The 

 green color indicates the area over which the greatest 

 injury was done ; the pink, the area which suffered less, 

 because more sparsely inhabited ; and the salmon, the area 

 which was more or less overrun by them. The map also 

 shows the eastern limit reached by the locusts. The insects 

 were doubtless equally numerous in the northwestern parts 

 of Wyoming and Dakota, and in Montana, for, in fact, 

 they breed there ; but the country is for the most part so 

 barren and so thinly settled that the reports were very 

 meagre. The loss to the States mentioned did not fall far 

 short of fifty millions of dollars. That much of the dam- 

 age resulted from the progeny of the swarms of 1873, 

 which, hatching in the country already indicated, as in- 

 vaded' during that year, ravaged the crops of the country 

 where they hatched, and eventually spread to the south- 

 east, the records abundantly prove ; but there was like- 

 wise a fresh invasion direct from the mountain region, 

 which added to that of 1873, rendered the year 1874 so 

 memorable. 



On account of the long continued drouth, and the rav- 

 ages of the chinch bug, but little green food was left in 

 Missouri and Kansas for the locusts to destroy. This, 

 however, they took. In most of the invaded counties of 

 Missouri, corn was already too hard to be damaged; but the 

 locusts stripped every green blade, and even the husks, 

 when not already killed by the chinch bug. 



The general direction from which they came was from 

 the northwest, the reports showing remarkable agreement 

 in this respect. The insects came nearly a month earlier 

 than they did in 1866. Kansas suffered, perhaps, most 

 severely. 



