100 
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 
Red-legged species ; and it is to that species that I should likewise refer the following 
observations, which, as well as many others that the reader has already perused, have 
been gleaned from the very valuable “ Records of the Season,” that enrich the pages of 
the Prairie Farmer. 
“ Morgan Co., Illinois, Sept. 7,1867. — Some grasshoppers are eating on the leaves of 
the corn, but not enough to do any damage.” — Prairie Farmer, Sept. 14, 1867. 
“ Stark Co., Illinois , Aug. 27, 1867. — Some grasshoppers are eating on the leaves of the 
corn, but not enough to do any harm.” — “ W. N. ” in Prairie Farmer, Sept. 7, 1867. 
“ Marshall Co., Illinois, Sept. 27, 1867. — Corn was doing well until the 27th of August, 
when THE GRASSHOPPERS made their appearance, eating off all the corn-blades and 
all our vegetables that grow above-ground.” — “ B. S. HP in Prairie Farmer Oct. 12, 
1867. 
“ Washington Co., Illinois, Sept. 3, 1867. —THE FLYING GRASSHOPPERS are here 
by the bushel, voracious eaters, they make fruit-trees, groves, currant and gooseberry 
bushes, and potato vines look bad indeed. Corn-fields look like fields of bean-poles with 
ears on them.” — “ 0. CP in Prairie Farmer, Sept. 7, 1867. 
Washington county, it will be observed, is in South Illinois, Morgan county in Cen¬ 
tral Illinois, Marshall and Stark couuties iu North Illinois ; and all four of them are 
removed by the width of at least two counties from the Mississippi River. Consequent¬ 
ly, it is unreasonable to suppose, knowing what we do of the habits of the Hateful 
Grasshopper, that that insect could have flown from the very centre of Iowa — the 
nearest point to Illinois where it is known to have occurred in the autumn of 1867 — 
over the whole of the eastern half of Iowa and at least two counties in Illinois, without 
leaving any signs of its journey on the road, and have subsequently appeared in one or 
more of the interior counties of Illinois in September, 1867. Hence, so far as indirect 
evidence goes, it is utterly improbable that the Grasshoppers referred to in the above 
extracts could have belonged to the Rocky Mountain species. It is very true that there 
is no direct evidence, that the Grasshoppers found in Illinois in Marshall and Washington 
counties during September, 1867, by “E. S. H” and “O. C.,” were not the veritable 
Hateful Grasshoppers of Kansas, and Nebraska, and Western Missouri, and Western 
Iowa; and certainly their habits, as stated in the above two extracts, agree very re¬ 
markably with those of the Rocky Mountain insect. But who is to blame for this 
missing link in the chain of evidence ? Not the editors of the Prairie Farmer • for no 
doubt they printed faithfully all the intelligence that their correspondents sent them. 
Not “E. S. H.” and “ O. C.”; for they spoke according to the lights that had been 
vouchsafed to them. Not the Entomologists ; for we have been preaching for the last 
ten years on the practical importance of our favorite branch of Science. The blame in 
reality, lies with our wretchedly defective School System, which persists in tearing the 
brains of young children to pieces with such useless acrobat-feats of the intellect, as arc 
dignified by the name of “Mental Arithmetic,” while it utterly neglects to instill into 
their minds the commonest rudiments of Natural History. Hence we are perpetually 
dinned with nonsensical theories about “THE borer,” “THE fly,” “THE bu°- ” “THE 
grasshopper,” &c., &c., as if there was respectively but ONE species of borers, of flies, 
of bugs and of grasshoppers within the limits of the United States ! Whereas in reality 
there are hundreds of distinct species of each of them, differing one from the other as 
widely as a sheep from a goat, or a cow from a deer, or a horse from a hog. Had but 
