CHAPTER VI. 



EFFECTS OF THE YOUNG INSECTS IN THE 

 COUNTRY IN WHICH THEY HATCH, 

 BUT ARE NOT INDIGENOUS. 



EXPERIENCE WITH THE YOUNG LOCUSTS IN THE SPRING. 



Haying already spoken, in Chapter II, of the desolate 

 aspect which the ravaged country sometimes wears toward 

 the end of June, it will suffice in this connection to give a 

 few of the more interesting experiences. It is recorded in 

 Europe that few things, not even water, stop the armies of 

 the young locusts when on the march, and Dongingk 

 relates having seen them swim over the Dnjestr for a 

 stretch of one and a quarter German miles, and in layers 

 seven or eight inches thick. t We have had similar expe- 

 rience with our own species. Mr. James Hanway, of Lane, 

 Kansas, informs me that the young in 1875 crossed the 

 Pottawatomie Creek, which is about four rods wide, by 

 millions. The Big and Little Blues, tributaries of the 

 Missouri — the one about one hundred feet wide at its 

 mouth, and the other not so wide — were crossed at numer- 

 ous places by the moving armies, which would march 

 down to the water's edge, and commence jumping in, one 

 upon another, till they would pontoon the stream, so as to 

 effect a crossing. Two of these mighty armies met — one 

 moving east and the other west — opposite a farm adjoin - 



* Koeppen, loc. cit., p. 8i 



(107) 



