390 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



In a northerly direction they were seen near the 

 Lumpy Hill within sixty miles of the North Branch, also 

 at Dauphin Lake where they had destroyed the crops of 

 Tawapit ; they had devoured all the crops with the ex- 

 ception of the potato at Fort Pelly before the 1st of 

 August. 



The ascertained limits of this mighty army of insects in 

 1857 extended from the 94th to the 112th meridian, and 

 from the 41st to the 53rd parallel; from the settlements 

 in Utah territory to near the V alley of the North Saskat- 

 chewan, and from the Lake of the Woods to the foot of 

 the Eocky Mountains. 



The brood from eggs deposited in 1857 at the Touch- 

 wood Hills, rose from the ground and took their flight on 

 the 28th July, after destroying every green leaf in the 

 garden of the Post, and leaving sad traces of their ra- 

 vages in the prairies lying to the south-east. At the time 

 of my visit not one was to be seen, so general had been 

 their departure. 



During the month of September, 1857, I saw the 

 females engaged in laying their eggs. They did not 

 limit themselves to the prairie soil in forming a nest, 

 but riddled the decayed trunks of trees, the thatch of 

 houses and barns, the wood of which they were built, 

 everything, indeed, which they could penetrate with the 

 little blades provided for that purpose. The appearance 

 presented by bare patches of soil, such as the road near 

 the settlements, suggested the idea that a vast number of 

 worms had risen to the surface and then retired again 

 after loosely closing the aperture they had made. When 

 in the act of preparing a nest for her eggs, the female 

 was observed to introduce her abdomen into the soil by 

 repeated thrusts to its full length, and then slowly with- 

 drawing it, eject her eggs to the number of ten or twelve 



