CHAPTER III. 



NATIVE HOME AND GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE .OF 

 THE SPECIES EAST OF THE MOUNTAINS. 



SOURCE OF THE DEVASTATING SWAEMS THAT REACH INTO 

 THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 



There is some difference of opinion as to the precise 

 natural habitat and breeding place of the Rocky Moun- 

 tain Locust, but the facts all indicate that it is by nature 

 a denizen of high altitudes, breeding in the valleys, parks 

 and plateaus of the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado, 

 and especially of Montana, Wyoming and British America. 

 Prof. Cyrus Thomas, who, through his connection with 

 Hay den's geological survey of the Territories, has had an 

 excellent opportunity of studying it, reports it as occurring 

 from Texas to British America and from the Mississippi 

 (more correctly speaking, the line I have indicated) west- 

 ward to the Sierra Nevada range. But in all this vast 

 extent of country, and especially in the more southern 

 latitudes, there is every reason to believe that it breeds 

 continually only on the higher mountain elevations, where 

 the amosphere is dry and attenuated, and the soil sel- 

 dom gets soaked with moisture. Prof. Thomas found it 

 most numerous in all stages of growth along the higher 

 valleys and canyons of Colorado, tracing it up above the 

 perennial snows, where the insect must have hatched, as it 

 was found in the adolescent stage. In crossing the moun- 



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