RAVAGES OF THE WESTERN CRICKET. 
165 
the road towards the northwest in one continuous stream ISO to 200 yards wide, and 
literally covering the earth. The length of the army was not ascertained, but it was 
much greater than the width, not less, at least, than a half a mile. The ground was 
so thickly covered that the horses could not walk without crushing numbers at every 
step. Large hawks were numerous, feasting on them. 
The ravages occasionally committed by the Anabrus in its wholesale 
descent upon the cultivated lowlands is very great. The most aggra- 
vated case brought to our notice occurred in Northern Nevada. Ac- 
cording to my informant, Mr. C. 0. Wheeler, of Cornucopia, New, in the 
summer of 1876 crickets devoured about $3,000 worth of wheat and 
other grain. As the cultivated areas in Nevada are small, the attacks of 
the cricket, which are liable to be repeated annually, are much dreaded. 
Mr. Wheeler observed that the cricket was very destructive in the north- 
ern parts of the Territory. In August, 1878, crickets were very thick 
between Elko and Humboldt, Nev., filling the wells and spoiling the 
water so that the people had to use brook water. 
In Oregon, east of the Cascade Mountains, where the country is dry 
and hot, with a climate and soil much like that of Nevada and Central 
Utah, the cricket often proves very annoying to the farmers. The fol- 
lowing statements by Mr. Henry Edwards, formerly of San Francisco, 
is taken from a brief account of this insect from Hayden's Ninth Report 
of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories. 209 
The large brown cricket (probably Anabrus simplex) is a great trouble to the farmers 
of this region (the Dalles), and this year [1873 .'] has been unusually common. It ap- 
pears that they march to attack the corn-fields in columns, and the only way left to 
the farmers to protect themselves is to dig trenches around their fields, into which the 
crickets fall in enormous crowds and are killed by their own numbers. The upper 
individuals, however, manage to make a bridge of the bodies of their companions, and 
sometimes cross the ditches in great quantities. Pigs eat these insects very greedily. 
They seem to be periodical in their appearance, the great swarms only occurring once 
in six years. I think their depredations are mostly committed in the night, as I saw 
none during the heat of the day, but toward twilight they swarmed on the stems of 
artemisia and other low plants, and were exceedingly active. 
While the cricket is annoying in Arizona according to information 
received from Maj. J. W. Powell, it is particularly destructive in Utah, 
both in the scattered oases or farming hamlets and villages of the south- 
ern and central portions, as well as in the more fertile valley of the 
Great Salt Lake, and in Cache and Malade Valley northward on the 
borders of Idaho. About Payson, Utah, the cricket has been "exceed- 
ingly destructive." Mr. B. F. Johnson, of Spring Lake, states that in 
1865, when the Rocky Mountain locust devastated that section of Utah, 
"large crickets made their appearance, not only in this, but in the sur- 
rounding settlements, in great numbers, and helped the destructive 
'hoppers to devour the crops." 
The cricket was more abundant formerly in Utah than of late years ; 
they then moved in armies which could not be turned back in their re- 
^Report on the Rocky Mountain locust and other insects now injnring or likely to injure field and 
garden crops in the Western States and Territories. By A. S. Packard, jr., 1877. 8°. pp. 589-815. 
