Locust Ravages East of the Mississippi. 195 



along each side of the thorax superiorly, and thence, more 

 distinctly on the front wings, narrowing and approaching 

 toward their tips, when closed. All these species belong to 

 the same genus as our Rocky Mountain Locust, and, except 

 in being unable to sustain long-continued flight,* agree 

 with it in habit. 



There are several locusts belonging to other genera which 

 are common over large areas from the Atlantic to the 

 Mississippi; and some of them, belonging to the genera 

 Acridium and (Edipoda have relatively longer wings than 

 the common Red-legged Locust, and consequently greater 

 power of flight. Yet they are seldom as injurious as the 

 short- winged Calopteni just enumerated, and the swarming 

 of Acridium Americanum (our largest species), as present- 

 ly described and as recorded in the paragraph from the 

 Rural Carolinian, {ante, p. 192), is quite exceptional. 



LOCUST FLIGHTS IN ILLINOIS IN 1875. 



The manner in which some writers have clung to the 

 idea that the Rocky Mountain Locust must overrun Mis- 

 souri, Illinois, and the States to the East, in spite of oppos- 

 ing facts, can be accounted for only by inordinate love of 

 magnifying possible danger and of making as much of a 

 sensation as possible out of any misfortune that befalls a 

 community. A certain amount of apprehension is pardon- 

 able ; and that, under such apprehension, all sorts of 



* Their power to sustain flight will increase as we approach the higher and drier 

 western country toward the mountains, and, I believe, according as the seasou of 

 their growth in any part of the country is hot and dry. The colors, also, become 

 brighter and lighter as we go west, with a tendency to increase of wing-length, 

 and a diminution of body-bulk. This is very noticeable in traveling over the 

 Western plains, where bivittatus, for instance, which, ordinarily, is far more de- 

 structive than spretus is to gardens in Western Kansas and Colorado, loses much 

 of its dull, olive-green color, and is brighter- and lighter-colored and longer- 

 winged, on an average, than at St. Louis. 



