33 
have been unable to determine. A Government agent was sent out to 
investigate this particular region, but, I believe, was unable to locate 
it. It is quite possible that it was some very local injury caused by 
the Melanoplus robustus, Dendrotettix longipennis, or Schistocerca ameri- 
cana that gave a foundation upon which to build these reports, which 
afterwards grew as they traveled. Or, it may be that this and other 
reports of the presence of grasshoppers in destructive numbers which 
agents afterwards failed to substantiate originated with newspaper cor- 
respondents who did not wish to be outdone by coworkers in other 
sections of the country who had reported bona fide swarms of these 
insects. 
Here in Nebraska there has been more or less injury from Melanoplus 
differ entialis, M. bivittatus, and M. femur -rubrum during the summer; 
but nothing serious has occurred, nor is there any indication of special 
injury for next year. This injury during the present year has been con- 
fined principally to cities and towns where poultry and wild birds do 
not have access to old weedy gardens and vacant lots where the 'hop- 
pers are allowed to deposit their eggs and hatch from year to year. 
Hence the increase and subsequent injury. 
While in attendance at the Washington meeting of the Association 
of Economic Entomologists last August considerable interest was man- 
ifested by those present in the locust question for the country at large 
during the present season. In the discussion that followed the pre- 
sentation of several papers bearing upon the subject, different entomol- 
ogists reported the presence of larger numbers of these insects than 
usual in Alabama, Mississippi, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and 
Iowa. Of course different species of these insects were the guilty ones 
in different regions ; but for the most part differ •entialis, bivittatus, and 
femur-rubrum were responsible for such injuries in these States, from 
which we have no special reports. 
These reports of locust injury, coming as they do from almost every 
section of the country, tend to show that the insects of this group are 
greatly on the increase, and that unless checked by natural causes, 
or unless early efforts are made by the people interested to check 
them, much greater injury must be expected in the near future. True. 
this excessive increase in so many species and over so wide a scope 
of country is due to some special cause or combination of such causes, 
which may seldom or never occur again. Still there is no telling what 
the future may hold in store. So the wisest plan, by far. as already 
intimated, is to help ourselves wherever we can. In the present case 
in particular it should be our aim to do this, since it has been demon- 
strated time and again that these locusts can very readily be kept in 
check by ordinary means. 
19539— No. 21 3 
