8 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
Taylor's Bridge, a distance of 22 miles ; the direction of their flight was 
to the south and southeast. August 30 locusts were seen in abundance 
for a distance of one or two miles at Pleasant Valley Station (about 
8,000 feet elevation; this is near the Idaho line). "At Deer Lodge I 
saw a few, but no damage was done by them. It was reported to me at 
Helena that on Sun River grasshoppers appeared in large numbers, as 
also near Clark's Fork, at Yellowstone River." 
Immigrant grasshoppers have made their appearance on East Gallatin, and have 
already destroyed several crops. They are still coming, and it is feared they will do 
more damage than ever before. The 'hoppers that hatched out in the valley ate up a 
few crops entirely, and it looks now as though they will make a clean sweep, except 
under the mountains.— [Ilocky Mountain Hunbandman, August 8, 1878. 
Grasshoppers in various localities are reported hatched and hatching in myriads. 
In the grain sections of Meagher County, in the Prickly Pear Valley, and elsi-w here, 
the pests have shown their destructive instincts, devouring the wheat aud all kinds 
of young vegetation. Farmers are flooding their fields, and millions of the insects ia 
this manner are swept away. Other methods are adopted to combat the encroaching 
insects, the most effective, perhaps, being that of scattering straw in the line of ap- 
proach, setting fire to the same, and singing the 'hoppers to a helpless state, or burn- 
ing them to a roast. Every product of the soil promises this year to find an activ* 
home demand, and it is to be hoped that the farmers will exhaust every means in theii 
power to ward off an enemy active in dissipating the fruits of an important industry, 
— [Quoted by the Denver Neat of June 11, 1-78, from the Helena (Montana) Herald. 
Mr. James Fergus writes us from near Helena that in the spring of this 
year, particularly in the lowest valleys, the eggs and young locusts were 
destroyed by the cold, snowy, freezing weather. Late in the spring fol- 
lowing — an early warm spring — locusts appeared on Smith River, doing, 
however, little or no harm. On the Upper Missouri River they did great 
damage to the late-sown wheat. On Middle Creek it is stated that fully 
one-fourth of the entire crop is destroyed by 'hoppers. 
From the facts here presented it will be seen that the locusts which 
bred in the spring of 1878 in the Upper Missouri, Gallatin, Prickly Pear 
Valleys, aud about Bozeman, constituted the swarms which from the 
middle of July to the end of August passed over the divide at Pleasant 
Valley into Eastern Idaho, and Cache and Malad Valleys of Utah, and 
passed south to the region about Salt Lake. 
It thus appears that the locusts which bred in Central Montana in the 
spring of 1878 hatched from eggs laid in that region late in the summer 
of 1877 by swarms which came over the Belt Mountains from the Yellow- 
stone and adjacent valleys lying to the north. (See First Report of the 
Commission, pp. 151 and 155.) The general course of the migration 
agrees with those of former years, as stated in our First Report. 
Owing to the vigilance and activity of the farmers of Central Montana, 
the damage done was light. The following extracts from the Rocky 
Mountain Husbandman will show how the young unwinged locusts were 
met and vanquished : 
Steven Howes, near Bozeman, has rigged up a machine to catch the grasshoppers 
in a bag. On Tuesday morning last, while the 'hoppers were numb and chilled, he 
ran the machine over eight acres of ground, and hauled in five bushels of them. He 
