50 The Rocky Mountain Locust. 



more hopeful. The freedom from other noxious insects 

 was everywhere apparent. In parts of the Northwest, as 

 in the East, the conditions were very different from what 

 they were in the Mississippi Valley, and the crops suffered 

 more or less from excessive drouth. In Colorado there 

 was some alarm, as the insects hatched in many localities, 

 but by no means so generally as in the previous years. 

 By persevering effort the farmers generally got the mas- 

 tery over them and made good crops. In Minnesota, 

 again, in some of the southern counties, where eggs were 

 laid, considerable damage was done, though not nearly so 

 much as in 1875. During the second week of July the 

 locusts took wing from that region, and it is interesting to 

 note that they instinctively took a north and northwest 

 course, just as in the previous year the fledged insects had 

 done a few weeks earlier in the season from Missouri and 

 the adjacent country to the west. Numerous dispatches 

 to St. Paul, Minneapolis, and other papers, show conclu- 

 sively that the general direction taken was northwest, 

 and that when the wind was unfavorable the insects 

 awaited a change. 



Such was the condition of things up to the early part of 

 August, and I began to hope that the country that had 

 suffered so much of late years by locust devastations, was 

 at last free from the scourge, and would not be overrun 

 again for some years to come. *But the great drouth which 

 prevailed in the Northwest appears to have favored the 

 hatching and development of the insects in that section ; 

 and no sooner had our people begun to congratulate them- 

 selves on the departure of the pests, than reports came of 

 the movement of new swarms from the north and north- 

 west. From that time on, till the approach of winter, 

 their movements were constantly reported and they even- 

 tually overswept a large part of the Western country. 



