ACTING STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
101 
“O. C.” of Washington county and “E. S. H.” of Marshall county been familiarized in 
their school-days with these simple truths, they would not have thought it sufficient 
merely to chronicle the fact, that “THE grasshoppers ” had done so and so in their 
respective neighborhoods; but they would, in addition, have sent specimens of the 
culprit insects to some competent entomologist — Mr. C. Y. Riley, for example, who at 
that very time was conducting the entomological department of the Prairie Farmer — 
and thus it could have been decided with scientific certainty, to what particular species 
their grasshoppers really belonged. Would farmers but make it a rule to adopt this 
course, whenever they notice any unusual occurrence in the little World of Insects, they 
would not only put money into their own pockets by furthering our knowledge of 
Economic Entomology, but they might, in addition, often subserve the interests of pure 
theoretical science, by adding new facts to the great store which has been already accu¬ 
mulated. When the scientific name of an Insect has been once, no matter how, deter¬ 
mined, the Farmer can record for all future ages with scientific precision whatever lie 
knows about it; and the Farmer, be it remembered, is just as capable as the Philosopher 
of observing the peculiar habits of any particular species of Insects, and ordinarily he 
has much better and more frequent opportunities for so doing than any Philosopher 
has. On the other hand, until the name of an insect is scientifically ascertained, every¬ 
thing that is said about it amounts to little more than guess-work, and groping round 
in the dark, and the balance of probabilities. We may, it is true, sometimes solve the 
scientific conundrum, as I have myself attempted to do in the present case, and believe 
that we have found the correct solution. But it cannot be too often repeated that, 
‘ ‘ Believing is not knowing , and faith is not science. ’ ’ 
The practical man will, perhaps, think that, of whatever theoretical interest these 
long-winded discussions on the nativity of certain broods of Grasshoppers may be, they 
are of no manner of practical importance. But the practical man, if he so think, will 
be, for once in his life, mistaken. Let it only be conceded that Hateful Grasshoppers, 
after being raised from the egg in 1867 in the lowlands of Kansas and Missouri, can 
generate freely the same year in the lowlands of Nebraska and Iowa — for it 
must be remembered that the Grasshoppers that afflicted the two last-named countries 
in the autumn of 1867 are said to have laid millions of eggs — and no good reason can 
be given, why Hateful Grasshoppers, raised from the egg in 1868 in Nebraska and Iowa, 
should not generate freely in Illinois in the autumn of that year ; and so on indefinitely 
for a long series of years. In other words, upon this seemingly mere theoretical ques¬ 
tion, that has been discussed at such tedious length, hangs the purely practical and 
highly important question, whether or not we folks in Illinois, and in other States still 
further to the east, are likely to be afflicted in the future by the Hateful Grasshopper 
for nobody knows how many years. If, on the contrary, every swarm of Hateful Grass¬ 
hoppers raised in the lowlands is always barren, and if every swarm of them that is 
capable of laying fertile eggs must necessarily, as I firmly believe, have been raised from 
the egg in its native alpine home, away up in the canons (kanyons) of the Rocky 
Mountains, then there must be some geographical limit or other to the region of 
lowland country, which they are physically capable of reaching. It would be absurd, 
for example, to imagine for one instant, that a Grasshopper-army, starting from the 
Rocky Mountains, could in one season fly all the way to France or England, or even as 
far as the Atlantic seabord of the United States. Hence, allowing that there is some 
geographical limit to the flight of such an army, we have but to recur to historical 
facts to find what that limit has hitherto been ; and we may then infer with moral 
