204 The Rocky Mountain Locust. 



the facts that — 1st, the power of flight of any insect that 

 has a limited winged existence, must somewhere find a 

 limit ; 2d, that all past experience has shown that Calop- 

 tenus spretus has never extended, in a general way, beyond 

 the limit indicated, and that as long as the present average 

 conditions of wind and climate and of timber-distribution 

 prevail, it is reasonable to suppose that it never will. 



One of the principal difficulties in the way of a proper 

 apprehension of the facts, is found in the failure, in the 

 popular mind, to discriminate between species. The ordi- 

 nary newspaper writer talks of the grasshopper, or the 

 locust, as though all over the country and all over the 

 world there was but one and the same species. One of 

 the Governors present at the Conference referred to, was 

 at first fully of the belief that our Rocky Mountain pest 

 came all the way from Asia. In the case of this destruc- 

 tive species, even some entomologists have added to the 

 difficulty by erroneously claiming that it is common all 

 over the country to the Atlantic ocean. 



The above thoughts were suggested by the following 

 reports, that met my eye, in the Cincinnati Gazette of the 

 24th of October, 1876, from Dayton and Hamilton, re- 

 spectively, in the State of Ohio: 



The advent of Kansas grasshoppers, over Sunday and until 

 Monday evening, in great numbers throughout the city, is a most 

 remarkable incident. They were found early Sunday morning, 

 and left, as suddenly as they came, on Monday evening. 



A shower of mammoth grasshoppers came down upon our town, 

 and vicinity on Saturday night. We have never seen such large 

 ones before, and we understand from old citizens, that they are 

 entire strangers in this part of the country. We saw a boy have a 

 string tied to two of them (which were as long as a man's finger) 

 trying to drive them, and he succeeded pretty well. 



A flock of grasshoppers alighted in Hamilton about 11 o'clock 

 on Saturday night, from the northwest. Those that were not 

 drowned in the river or killed by the heavy rain, were probably 

 gobbled up before Sunday night by the chickens. 



