S92 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



ordinary capabilities to sustain low temperatures, which 

 would doubtless obtain at that elevation in a region of 

 eternal snows. 



Their principal food is the prairie grass and the leaves 

 of shrubs, but they will attack any substances presented 

 to them, even such indigestible articles as leather, travel- 

 ing bags, woollen garments, saddle girths, and harness. 

 In a few minutes they ate the varnish from the leather 

 case of a telescope I left on the ground in 1858, and so 

 disfigured a valise that the owner who had seen it sound 

 and untouched a few minutes before we stopped to camp, 

 could not recognize it after it had lain ten minutes on the 

 grass. Blankets became instantly covered with them and 

 eaten into holes, the only article of clothing which did 

 not suffer from their voracity was the caoutchouc or gutta 

 percha cloaks and coverings. 



The periodical visitations of these locusts have been 

 enumerated among the objectionable features of parts of 

 the Far West, and as some of the obstacles to the settle- 

 ment of Nebraska.* That they will also exercise an 

 important influence upon the future of the southern part 

 of Eupert's Land, there is but too great reason to fear ; 

 already they have twice destroyed the crops in different 

 parts of the Settlements, and in the state of Minnesota in 

 the region about Crow Wing they rendered husbandry 

 hopeless for two years, producing great distress in that 

 newly settled country. 



THE FLOODS. 



Spring freshets in the valley of Eed Eiver sometimes 

 assume the form of wide-spreading devastating floods. 

 The alluvial character of the prairies through which Eed 



* Explorations in Nebraska and Dakotah, by Lieutenant Warren, U.S. 

 Top. Eng. 



