[20] REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
Jackson, Jackson County, June 7, 1877. 
Grasshoppers are not so numerous in this locality as was anticipated when they first 
commenced to hatch. The unprecedented heavy rain that fell May 20 must have de- 
stroyed myriads of them. 
The eggs were deposited by two different swarms that lit here in the latter part ef 
July and fore part of August last. 
The nones nearest the surface commenced to hatch about the middle of April, and 
as lato as May 24 cones turned up (while plowing) and would burst from five minutes' 
exposure to the air and the sun, until the plowed ground was covered with the little 
struggling pests. The yellow-headed blackbirds, in the meantime, were enjoying 
a carnival upon that plowed ground glorious to behold. 
The 'hoppers, true to the instinct with which they are eudowed, invariably deposit 
their eggs in solid bare ground, as the hatching process depends entirely upon the 
action of the sun and air. 
Were it not for the migratory swarms liable to settle down upon my farm from time 
to time, the task of annihilating grasshoppers upon my own premises might be easily 
done : First, by preserving the grass upon pasture and meadow until the 'hoppers were 
all hatched and the dead grass real dry, and then fire it on the windward side during 
a rousing wind. The tilled land I should plow with a breaking plow, such that would 
ecour,with a device attached to the fore part of the beam to skim the surface, so as to 
convey all the eggs snugly into the bottom of the furrow and turn up subsoil enough 
on top that neither drill nor harrow would disturb them while seeding in the spring. 
Besides destroying many of the nests, such a thorough stirring of the soil would 
well repay for the extra power needed to draw the plow. Thence highly cultivated 
and thickly settled regions need not lose but one crop, the one that the pests might 
alight upon. But in these parts where so many farms have been vacated, and the few 
settlers that remain being generally miles apart, with every atom of energy and enthu- 
siasm within them, so to speak, beiug smothered during the long siege, the question 
at once assumes a magnitude beyond conception, and the only safe course for us to 
pursue under present circumstances, is to till less ground and raise more live stock, 
for the native grasses, which are never devoured enough to speak of by grasshoppers, 
cannot be excelled in any part of the world for fattening stock. 
There is a substance, which appears and tastes like saleratus, found in streaks 
through all the soils in these parts; the rains wash it from the knolls until the hol- 
lows are white with it, and I am inclined to think the 'hoppers have a tendency to 
subsist upon vegetation impregnated with it. 
JOHN DAVIS. 
DATA FOR IOWA. 
Tabor. Fkkmont County, April 11, 1877. 
Your letter to President Brooks was handed me. I shall be ready to do all I can to 
assist in the work of studying and exterminating grasshoppers. 
A few exx>eriments I perhaps might give now as well as later. 
About the middle of last February, after considerable pleasant weather. I dug a lot 
of eggs and kept them about ten days on the window-sill (a south window) in my 
recitation-room, in a crayon-box, when they commenced hatching and so continued for 
about ten days more, when I tested the effect of cold upon them, some of them having 
already shed their skins once. 
I first placed some in a dry test-tube and plunged it into a freezing-mixture cooled 
to 10° F. ; after keeping them one hour, all (20) were dead, and I have no doubt half 
that time would have been sufficient. 
I then placed the box with the rest upon a stone out-doors and left it over night. 
In the morning the thermometer was at 15° F., and placing one in the box, it soon fell 
to 18°. I left the box in this position till noon, to avoid sudden changes of tempera- 
ture. The day was pleasant, and at noon I found one or two (out of probably 15 or 
20) moving, but I saw nothing of them after. It evidently killed them. However, I 
found on bringiug the box to the warmer air of our living room, that about a dozen 
new ones came out, readily distinguished by their lighter color. 
I have observed, also, that those just emerging from the egg are liable to be killed 
by their elders. I saw this done repeatedly. It may have been owing to lack of fixxl 
at first. 
I have the opinion that most of our eggs are dead, but have not satisfied myself; 
fully by observations. This opinion is based on the fact that many eggs are dried up; 
many examined seem no further along than in February. Again, those in exception- 
allv drv places hatched, although they have been more exposed during the winter. 
JAMES E. TODD. 
