The Grasshopper Exodus: How a Plague in Nebraska is Filling Seattle's Streets

THE GRASS-HOPPER SCOURGE.

We have been shown letters lately received in this city from Nebraska, which give dolorous accounts of the continued ravages of the grass-hoppers in that state. One correspondent writing from Haintsville, in Buffalo county, states that he has had between forty and fifty acres of grain destroyed by them and desires to emigrate to Washington Territory. Another writes that he and a large company of his neighbors would remove hither, but that the hoppers have so crippled their resources that they are unable to make the journey, but there are many who will come notwithstanding.

As this extraordinary plague that has so long afflicted the Rocky mountain States is a curious phenomenon in its way, we have taken the pains to gather some facts relative to it, that might be of interest to the public.

The district embraced Western Iowa and Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and Indian Territory in the United States, and the Manitoba and Saskatchewan districts in the Dominion. The first tradition we have of their inroads was in 1849, since which time they have been more or less troublesome at seasons in the districts above mentioned. Their depredations, however, have not attracted much national attention, until quite a recent date, for the reason, it is said, that it has only been since the settlement of the country, within a few years past, that the region in question has supported sufficient vegetation to sustain them in any great number.

The method of their operations is thus described. Their principal ravages are committed upon the corn, and other grain crops. They nip off the stalks of the wheat and barley below the head, feeding only upon the leaves. Oats are cut off kernel by kernel, whilst corn is devoured bodily. They seem to have a special fondness for "garden stuff" and show a discriminating fondness, that is almost human, for the highest flavored products, as onions, red peppers, garlic and tobacco. They eat off the tops of growing potatoes but do not trouble the tubers, although they eat onions down to the root. A few articles as sorghum and castor-oil beans, are exempt.

They lay their eggs in the feeding grounds, and the young fledglings in the spring are ready to take the first sprouts, but as soon as able to fly they migrate, usually going towards the south-east. When the wind blows in any other direction, they do not beat up to windward as the skippers do, exactly, but lie to on the ground. In the distance, they look like a cloud of black smoke, and as they come nearer, they resemble a snow storm driving about you. The noise of their wings in the distance sounds like a heavy wind approaching. They usually roost over where they happen to arrive at dark, and are off again in the morning if the wind is favorable and it does not rain; otherwise, they are liable to forage around until a change in the weather.

One of our correspondents suggests the advantage of distributing throughout this region a large number of circulars setting forth the inducements of our Territory to settlers, stating that one of those advertising pamphlets relative to Oregon, received from Portland, was read with avidity by him, and afterward circulated throughout the neighborhood until worn out, resulting in some migration. He believes that if a few thousand copies of such a publication were scattered throughout Iowa, and the neighboring States and Territory, they would bring us a heavy immigration.