Year: 1877

StS, st. Louis, and made tllat It's headquarters.


Issuing thence. the commission sought the locust


on his native heath. The members of the com


mission were not unfamiliar with the saltatOry in


sect. Professor Riley had handled it, so to speak.


without gloves. He had plunged it head-fOre-


most into the seething stew and the sputtcring


frying-pan, and had watched its last kick as it


was enrolled in the fritter. Then with the


self-sacrlcing bravery of science, he had


eaten the locust, like another John


the Baptist. Perhaps the sO-called mo-


lasses which the American gTaSshOpper
disils from his lips, served yas a substitute for


wild honey. At all events the Professor was
gratiied with his fare and urged il upon his
scientific friends. Here was solution of the
graSshopper problem. The insect eats the
crops you have but to eat the insect, and the
crops are saved-saved either way, whether
you cook the locust before or after it has
breakfasted on your waving fields. But the
problem, like that of the hyperbola with the
infinite leg, still stretched out INTO space. Pro-
feSsor Packard, too, was intimately acquainted
with the hopper, and had dlscOurScd upon all
kinds of lOngshanls. from the cricket-On-the-
hearth to the Tropjddcris dur that spans
eight inches when it stretches out to go
to sleep in Brazilian forests. They went
their several ways, those wise men OF the
East, in search of the home of The grasshOpper,
near the setting sun. The farmers OF the dis
tant West received the sages with open arms.
Every mothers son of those owners of de-
vastated crops was of the same opinion about
the insect that it could be easily eXterminated
if every other farmer would turn to and help
in the killing. But the trouble which every
farmer clearly foresaw was, that his neighbors
would not cooperate So there was nothing
for it but to go further and further back to
find the place where the locust started.


This the commission have at last done
They have tracked the beast TO his lair
in the Rocky Mountains. The question of
identity is settled beyond dispute. The
Rocky Mountain locust ranges even so
far west as the 120th meridian; and
is never out of proper latitude while
between 81 and $50 north. But while the
farmers on the hither side Of the Rockies have
been congratulating themselves this year on
comparative immunity from the hopper, it
has taken advice, and gone west. This IS
new departure Whether the parent stock in
the Rocky Mountains have learned wisdom



souri,, and were grilled in blazing ovens
or stuck to the tarTed sleds that the
farmers provided for them. or whether
the bare rumOr of the approach OF the
chronological Commission started the retreat
of the ten million, is not yet aScertaned.
Certain it is that the Rocky Mountain locust
emigrated from Montana to the Burnt River
Country in Oregon, about the 10th of July,
destroying as it went and the owners of the
rich wheat farms of the Wala Walla have
dire forebOdingS that it will be among them
next year. It has never before been seen so
far west, and there is no Typographical reason
why its travels should stop till it reaches the
banks of the Columbia River or the eastern
flank of the Cascade Mountains.


This migration of the Rocky Mountaineer is
wholly indcfensible on grounds of political
economy. There was room enough and TO
spare on either flank of the Range Nothing
hut the innate sinfulness of the creature could
have tempted it. For the region toward which
il is travelling was and il already occupied by
another grasshOpper; one who has precmpted
the slopes of the Sierra Nevada and
is accustomed to issue thence to ravlge
the Pacific coast including California, Oregon,
and Washington Territory. That is a smaller
insect. 1t is mean for the big one to take ad-
vantage of its size. The little one, too, has a
capital appetite; the newcomer will take the
bread ont of its mouth. There is besides, a
well developed cricket which is in the habit of
devastating Idaho and Oregon and Washington
Territory. The criclets will certainly be
starved if these intrulers eat them out OF house
and home. Something ought to be done about
it, Starvation is never permitted in this
country.


The report of the chronological Commits
sion will be OF unquestiOnable service in sug-
gestng ways and means for checking this in
sect. endowed with Unsuitable appetite and a
to emigrate. Already preliminary
reports have been of great use. The final
document will also give the longShankS To-
cal habitation and name, settling for
ever the veXed question of the debat-
ing societies, whether the locust should
be called a grasshOpper, or vice versa
Perhaps the report will also touch upon
the seyentecn-year insect that is not locust,
which made the woods of New-Jersey vocal
last Summer, since n controversy about it that
has lasted for ages, has been recently closed.
The mechanism of the cicadas music is at
last determined. lis song, rs is well known,
is the deepest of chcst-nOtes, coming
in fact, from cavity which is mostly in the
abdomen. If anybody wants to make an artI-
fetal cicada. let him take two strips of spring
steel, each with dent i'll it, hold the strips
at one end so that they face each other, and
vibrate the other end The vibration should
make the dents In the springs snap in
ward and outward, and produce noise. a toy
has been sold all over the civilized world