The Western Cricket. 
!3 
spring. The migrations after this period begins consist only in 
short trips from the breeding grounds to feeding places and back. 
When in the neighborhood of water they have been observed to go 
to it, drink and retire. The gregarious habit still prevails. The 
bands, though somewhat scattered, still maintain their entity. Usu¬ 
ally the lines marking the margins of a group are sharply defined 
and only a few stragglers are to be found beyond its limits. 
The distances to which the insects may travel during the mi¬ 
grations and the rate of travel vary greatly. The bands which 
reached Eddy and came within five miles of Steamboat Springs 
may have traveled between fifteen and thirty miles. It is not al¬ 
together certain where the starting point was. The band which 
reached Lay, traveled much farther. With regard to the rate of 
travel we have one authentic record. The army which found its 
resting place at Pagoda was reported by telephone from four miles 
up the fork a week before it reached that place. That is, it trav¬ 
eled at the rate of something over half a mile per day. 
The traveling, so far as we observed, was done entirely by 
daylight. At night the insects mass themselves upon the sage brush 
or other vegetation and remain there until daylight. The Ento¬ 
mological Commission records that the invasions were made at 
night, but such was not our observation. Reports were made, 
however, of insects being found in the houses in large numbers 
early in the morning. 
Several localities were found where the insects were oviposit¬ 
ing. They were invariably dry knolls, which were nearly or quite 
barren of vegetation, and where the soil was soft and usually clayey. 
The eggs did not appear to be numerous in any locality west of 
Dunkley. At Pagoda four counts were made of separate deposits 
which contained 18, 4, 9 and 14 eggs, respectively. 
There is but little doubt that the western cricket is perma¬ 
nently located in the Danforth hills (See map) south and west of 
Axiel. A lady living there reported that on her ranch seven miles 
east, it was necessary to fight the insects almost every year. They 
come in from the west and travel east and up canons, and are kept 
off the crops by herding and noise. The insects are sometimes 
quite young when they appear, and the invasions are liable to con¬ 
tinue until they are full grown and retire to the hills. 
At Hamilton, a town perhaps twenty miles east of Axiel on 
the William’s Fork of Bear river, we were able to obtain 
definite data regarding them. 
The first observations were made by Mr. T. H. Hamilton in 
1879. He kindly gave me the following notes: From here the 
insects travel northeast, and to accomplish this it is necessary for 
them to cross William’s Fork, which flows quite rapidly at this 
point. In making the attempt, immense numbers were drowned 
