36 



The Rocky Mountain Locust. 



It is probable that part of the injury reported in 1856 

 and 1857 east of the Rocky Mountains was caused by the 

 progeny from the immense swarms that swept over the 

 country in 1855 ; and it is quite likely that some of them 

 reached Missouri, for Mr. H. B. Palmer, of Hartville, has 

 related to me that, about 1857, these insects passed through 

 a portion of Wright county, from north to south, stripping 

 everything on their way. 



In 1860, as several Kansans have informed me, these 

 locusts came and did much damage around Topeka, re- 

 maining a few days and leaving the last of August. This 

 must have been a limited and rather local swarm. 



In 1864 we again hear of locust invasions into Manitoba, 

 Minnesota, and around Sioux City, Iowa, their eggs hatch- 

 ing and the young doing much damage the following year, 

 1865. In Colorado one of the most destructive visitations 

 ever known there came in 1864 from the northwest, doing 

 much damage, as did the progeny in 1865. 



The year 1866 was another marked locust year, and the 

 first, since that of 1855, in which the damage was sufficiently^ 

 great and wide-spread as to attract national attention. 

 The insects swarmed over the Northwest and did great 

 damage in Kansas, Nebraska, and Northeastern Texas, and 

 invaded the western counties of Missouri very much as 

 they did in 1874. They came, however, about a month 

 later than in that year. They were often so thick that 

 trains were seriously delayed on account of the immense 

 numbers crushed on the track. Mr. Walsh has published 

 a full record of this invasion in the Report already cited.* 



In 1867 the progeny of those which fell upon the country 

 the previous year did more or less damage, which was ex- 

 tensively reported during the early part of the growing 



* First Annual Rep. as Acting State Ent. of 111., pp. 83-4 (1868). 



