90 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
respondence, is not yet wholly "h en up. We find it frequently stated 
in the older writers that these kings or leaders with a lew companions 
go before the army a day's journey as it were to find out suitable stop- 
ping places, to which the main body comes with unerring certainty. 
Solomon says (Pro v. xxx, 27), "The locusts have no king, yet go they 
forth all of them by bands," and in this he is certainly correct. But we 
may add with quaint old Purchas, "Though they be nine rege nine lcge y 
yet have they a conspiring agreement to do mischief.'' 
Sometimes they arise suddenly over a large area, as if inspired 
instantaneously by the same impulse, and fly away. This usually hap- 
pens under the following circumstances. A swarm makes a start in a 
given direction, and are stopped by an adverse wind; they remain, 
generally doing more or less injury, uutil the wind again turns to the 
original course. If this change happens during the warm part of the day, 
and somewhat suddenly, almost in an instant all arc on the wing. 
The following extract from a letter by Capt. Leslie Smith, then sta- 
tioned at Fort Sully, Dak., is directly to the point : 
It has been observed by me that when the grasshoppers are on the wing, if tho 
wind is fair, they do not alight ; but should the wind suddenly change and blow a 
little fresh, they immediately alight, and remain until the wind becomes favorable 
again, when they, with wonderful unanimity, take wing and fly off on their intended 
course. 
Norton, Norton County, Kansas, August 13, 1877 : 
The divide between Prairie Dog and the Sapper was literally covered with locusts 
at 9 o'clock, and at 10.35 a gust of wind came from a little west of north, when tho 
whole of them rose and started off on their southern tour. — [Thomas Beaumont. 
It also occasionally happens that they depart suddenly and in concert 
from the section in which they have been reared; but their desire to 
depart will be shown previously by constantly rising in the air iu the 
hot part of the day, taking short flights and circling around in an uueasy 
and impatient manner. This occurs usually while the air is calm, but 
the moment it turns in the proper direction, if during the warm part of 
the day, they are off. But it is usually the case that the larger swarms 
are formed by constant additions to the ranks of those which first start. 
Those of a given locality starting, as they move along, others arise and 
join them. Lallemaut, who has studied very carefully the history and 
habits of the locusts of Algiers (A. peregrinum), paying particular atten- 
tion to their migrations, gives this as his opinion. 199 This is also con- 
firmed by the statements of a number of our Western correspondents. 
The following notice of their methods of forming bands is given in the 
accouut of the invasion of Transylvania in 1747, and the resulting brood 
of 174:S. 190 Speaking of the resulting brood, the writer says : 
As soon as any of them found themselves able to use their wings, they soared up, 
and by flying around the others enticed them to join them, their numbers increasing 
daily; they took circular flights of twenty or thirty yards square, until they were 
189 Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg., ix. 
isoPkiL Trans., vol. 46 j also, Shaw's Gen. Zool., vi, 130. 
