318 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
would be by a system of fire-guards where there are no natural streams 
or other barriers to prevent the spread of the dames. We repeat, that 
any extensive system of guarding the vegetation in the fall so as to fire 
it the ensuing spring would only be warranted at government expense 
in those particular areas where it is absolutely known that eggs have 
been thickly laid ami thai the insects from such eggs will swarm the 
following year. Such ;i condition will occur only at irregular intervals 
and the government should take some Btepsto provide for annual obser- 
vations that will lead to a knowledge as to when and where such con- 
ditions prevail. Systematic tiring should then be carried on from the 
circumference of such area or areas after the bulk of the insects are known 
to have hatched and before they are able to escape by flight. That such 
work can profitably be performed in large portions of the permanent 
region, we have little doubt, and that the expense in such instances 
would be warranted is made manifest by the terrible losses which the 
insects are capable of occasioning. 
In many sections a system of fire guards will be absolutely necessary 
to judiciously carry out any such scheme, in order to prevent the de- 
struction of timber. 
6. A PERMANENT SYSTEM OF OBSERVATIONS AND WARNINGS. — III 
order to carry out the plan just considered, and, in fact, to enable the 
government to take any intelligent action Looking to tin- direct destruc- 
tion and decrease of the Locust in the region under consideration, sys- 
tematic observations made and reported from year to year are absolutely 
essential, and we cannot too strongly urge upon Congress that pro- 
vision be made for such continued observations. There is no reason 
why it should not be made part of the duty of the Signal Bureau to 
obtain the desired information, and to report the situation to the country 
from time to time. The source of these destructive insects is no longer 
an utter mystery, and every year is adding to the facilities for making 
the desired observations. 
With an increasing population; with the near completion of projected 
roads through Montana and adjoining Territories; with the completion 
of the Canadian and Northern Pacifies now assured, the means of estab- 
lishing a system of locust signals and warnings, and of making more 
complete and accurate observation, will be far greater than they have 
been. Information as to the situation and extent of egg-deposits; the 
time of hatching of the young locusts; their movements both on foot 
and on wiug, can and should be as rapidly obtained and disseminated 
as possible. The local press will be but too ready to disseminate it. 
The course of flights from day to day should be traced and published 
in the maps issued and now generally posted at available points, as 
post-offices, depots, etc. In many instances such warnings would enable 
the farmer to cut and save his crops before the swarms reached him, 
that would otherwise, unheralded, swoop down upon him and in a few 
hours destroy the labor of a year. Tracts which it would pay to guard 
