Article beginning on page 379.
Psyche 3:379, 1880.

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PSYCHE. 379
be observed in other insects that when'they though the flies had the winter are sluggish or at rest they are not so within the walls of the house. Numerous readily affected by medicinal agencies as instances, which will occur to experienced when in a state of motion or excitement. entomologists, might be cited of the con- I remember that, during one or two greetion of winged insects in sheltered years, at a certain season, which, as far situations for the. purpose of hibernation, aa my recollection serves me, was in this habit being only a modification of the April, I noticed numerous specimens of general habit in hibernating insects to seek Sfwrodon ghtosus, a. syrphid fly, issue a place for individual shelter. from a nail-hole iu the plastered wall of Washington, 11 Nov. 1882. an apartment in a dwelling-house, as
PROMOTING LOCUST RAVAGES.
BY BEKJAMIN PICKMAS MANN, WASHINGTOST, D. C. It is we'll established that the year
has already been made for the state of Ne- 1874 was characterized in the state of Kan- bra.s'ka by Prof. S. Aughey in the 1st
saa by the most extensive ravages of the report of the U. S. entomological cornis- so-called Rocky Mountain locust, Calopte- sion, Mr. Brown says :- nw spretus, which insects flew into the "After a twelve year's residence in east- state from the west and the north, and
era Kansas. I left that excellent state in stripped large areas bare of vegetation, the fall of 1875. The devastation in that year occurred pi-in- "After raising a fine crop of corn and cipaily in the western and central portions seeing it destroyed by the locusts before it of the state, but, as Dr. C. V. Riley says was ripe, or advanced sufficiently for gath- in his 8th report as state entomologist ering, I was, in common with many thous- of Missouri,
" the greatest bulk of the and others, nmch discouraged. eggs were [was] laid as the locusts "Settlers who had lost all their crops, approached the. eastern limits of the state." with very little to subsist upon, found it In 1875 " the damage done was by the necessary to hunt prairie chickens, and to young locusts, which hatched in enormous sell them for the necessaries of life, and numbers in the eastern part of the state." many, for sport as well, made a business The purpose of this note ie that I may during the entire winter of killing and publish a cornminictition sect to me by &hipping not only prairie chickens, but also Mr. J. P. Brows, formerly, for twelve quails and other birds. years, a resident of eastern Kansas, from "I took pains to gather from commission which state he removed, discouraged by merchants of Leavenworth', Kana., and of the ravages of the locusts, in the fall Kansas City and St. Joseph, Mo.? and of 1875. This commitnication explains
from the express compfiisies, such date a8 sufficiently at least one of the causes of the I could at the time, and estimated that enormous prevalence of young locusts in during the winter of 1874 the enormous that slate, in 1875. A similar showing quantity of 1000 car-loads of birds were



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destroyed and shipped to eastern markets quail. It can readily be seen that these from points west of Saint Louis, Mo. young insects, no larger when first hatched "The next spring, when the eggs of the than a grain of rye would soon have Iocusts began to hatch out, it was discov- been exterminated had that quantity too late, that there were no birds to
of birds been preserved for the purpose ; r the insects that were so rapidly
instead of which, from an apparent necea- growing, and must subsist upon the crops sky, the birds were destroyed and come-
until able to fly to other localities.
quently the total crops of the state of Kan- "It is safe to estimate that a gill [about sas and western Missouri, Nebraska and
0.12 litre] of young locusts, from one day part of Iowa were also desti-oyed. to two weeks old, will number 1000. Yet
"Is it not time some protection was
a gill would be a small day'a ration for ft afforded these feathered friends 7 3." prairie fowl, or half that amount for a
ON A HABIT OF SCOLOPENDRA MOBSITANS,
BY GEOKGB DIMMOCK, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
The note by Mr. 3. W. Freese, on page pion's poison apparently acting on the neigh- 290 of the present volume of PSYCHE, upon boring nervouscenters, but in a few minutes the habit observed iu a species of Phalanx the myriapod recovered the use of its legs, +, or harvest-man, of putting a woun- and was only killed after repeated serious ded part of its leg to its mouth, reminds tearing of its body by the acorpion'a sting, me of an analogous habit of Scolopendra
It is possible that the Scohpendra tram- wsita~os.
fera much of the scorpion's poison from
Last March, while at Ba~yule-sur-mer,
the wounds to its stomach, or even that
in the eastern Pyrenees, I took advantage somecurative fluid is poured upon them of the abundance of S. rnorsitans in that to neutralize the scorpion's poison, but it region to see what would be the result of seems more likely that the process is one combats between that poisonous myriapod of simple cleaning such aa t'bsScolope~dru and Buthas &tams, M scorpion not rare would employ if any extraneous matter in the same region.
Without detailing wa8 put upon the surface of its body, the their mode of fighting it suffices to say here pain of the wounds only serving to direct that the Scolcpmdra was usually badly
immediate attention to them. The same
lacerated by the violent strokes of the
result would probably follow the applica- sting of the Buthus, the latter animal always tion of any irritant upon the Scolopendra, being victor. After receiving a stroke
and with less rapidity if any viscid fluid from the scorpion the myriapod immediate- was daubed upon its body. Many mandib- ly, in fact with apparent 'haste, began work- date insects cleanse their limbs with their ing at the wound with its mouth-parts,
mouth-parts, and I have often seen Scob
seeming to eat the fluids exuded from its pendra use its mouth-parts to clean its an- body. For a time the legs of the myriapod tennae, legs, and the surface of its body. were paralyzed near the wound, the scor- Canabridge, 27 Nov. 1882.




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