Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/276

264 capacity visited several of the Western Territories, and published a large quarto memoir on the family of geometrid moths, familiar examples of which are those forms the larvæ of which are known as canker-worms.

The year 1873 witnessed the establishment of the Anderson School of Natural History on the illy adapted island of Penikese, and here for two summers (the whole period of the existence of the school) Dr. Packard gave the instruction in the articulates. When the Penikese experiment was abandoned, the idea of a summer zoölogical station where students could come for the summer and pursue a course of study was taken up by the Peabody Academy of Science, which for five years maintained such a school. During the first three years of the existence of this Salem school (1876-'78) Dr. Packard was at its head, giving lectures, assisting in demonstrations, and in every way trying to make it a success.

The years from 1873 to 1876 will long be remembered by the inhabitants west of the Mississippi, from the terrible devastations of the Rocky Mountain locust, or grasshopper, as it is more familiarly known. Over enormous tracts of country everything green was devoured by these insect pests, and an enormous amount of suffering was caused by the destruction of the crops of the farmers. Indeed, so serious were the ravages that Congress was implored to create a commission of eminent entomologists to seek some way to check the locusts and to prevent their ravages. Congress passed the desired bill, and the Secretary of the Interior appointed, as the United States Entomological Commission, Prof. C. V. Piley, Prof. Cyrus Thomas, and Dr. A. S. Packard. If the logic of post hoc, ergo propter hoc, be valid, no better appointments could have been made, for the very year these persons began their duties the locust troubles were very materially diminished. The three members of the commission divided the field between them, and Dr. Packard made several trips to the Territories to study the extent of the locust ravages, and to ascertain their breeding-grounds. One of these trips took him to California, Oregon, and Washington Territory. As has been said, the locust invasions ceased almost the moment the commissioners were appointed, but other insects became serious pests in other parts of the country, and so Congress enlarged the scope of the commission, and directed its members to investigate the chinch-bug, the Hessian fly, and the cotton-worm, and limited the duration of the existence of the board to five years. The commission have published three annual reports, large octavo volumes, filled with information regarding various destructive insects, besides numerous smaller bulletins. They have another and final report now in press.