DESTRUCTIVE LOCUSTS 
INTRODUCTION. 
Since tbe great " grasshopper years " of 1873-'76 there have been 
frequent outbreaks of comparatively local species, as well as a few cases 
in which small swarms of the Eocky Mountain Locust have flown out 
into the subpermanent region and have occasioned some damage for a 
year or so. The most notable cases have been the outbreaks of the 
Lesser Migratory Locust in New Hampshire in 1883 and 18S9, the ex- 
traordinary multiplication of the Devastating Locust in California in 
1885, the increase of local species in Texas in 1887, the multiplication 
of a chance swarm of the Rocky Mountain species in a restricted locailty 
in Minnesota in 1888, and last year's damage in Idaho by several non- 
migratory species combined. 
For a number of years the First and Second Reports of the United 
States Entomological Commission, which contained the results of the 
labors of the commission upon the Rocky Mountain Locust, have been 
out of print, and yet with every renewed alarm caused by locusts there 
has been a great demand upon this Division for information, which 
could only be supplied by correspondence or by publishing the infor- 
mation in local newspapers. For a time the demand was filled by sup- 
plying the Annual Report of this Department for 1877, which con- 
tained bodily the chapters upon remedies from the first commission 
report. The supply of this document was also soon exhausted. 
The fact that Mr. Bruner in his last summer's trip to Idaho investi- 
gated the latest rumors and found that considerable damage was being 
done and that the farmers were not acquainted with even the most 
rudimentary measures for protection and remedy, shows the necessity 
of publishing a condensed and practical accouut of the species which 
become seriously injurious from time to time, and of republishing in as 
brief form as possible the matter on remedies and preventives from the 
reports mentioned. This bulletin is the result. It is, in fact, a repro- 
duction of matter already published but now inaccessible for dissemina- 
tion, and which, from its nature, has a permanent value, together with 
such additional facts as subsequent experience has revealed. It con- 
tains no technical matter whatsoever, and the farmer will be able to 
recognize the different species from the figures which accompany the 
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