The Great Grasshopper Mystery

SCORCHING WINDS RIPPLED through the sea of brown grass as Tom and his pony drove the family’s small herd of cattle onto the prairie to graze. Tom’s father had gone into town that morning, leaving the ten-year-old in charge of the herd. Fences were rare on the Kansas frontier, and it was Tom’s job to keep the family’scattle from scattering over the vast grassland.

- Sally Lee

As he scanned the western sky, hoping for any sign of rain that might yet rescue his family’s drought-shriveled crops, Tom noticed a mysterious cloud forming on the horizon. Soon its dark, smoky wisps grew into a thick, eerie brown mass that began covering the prairie in shadow. It was as if a blanket were being pulled over the earth.

A weird buzzing and whirring noise came from inside the cloud. As it swept overhead, large grasshoppers began dropping from the sky, pelting the ground like hail. They thudded against Tom, clinging to his clothes with their spindly legs.

Grasshoppers soon blanketed everything, including Tom’s cattle. Bawling and bellowing, the frightened animals stampeded across the prairie. Tom chased them through the blizzard of grasshoppers for miles. Finally, the exhausted cattle slowed, and Tom was able to turn the herd around. On the way back he met up with his father, who had followed the cattle’s trail for three hours to find him. They continued their trip home through a devastated countryside that no longer looked familiar.

The insects causing havoc with Tom’s cattle that summer of 1874 were Rocky Mountain locusts, a type of grasshopper with a split personality. For periods lasting several years, locusts act like other grasshoppers. They stay close to their home range and feed in a limited area. But during severe droughts, when conditions are right, locusts become the supermen of the insect world. They grow larger and stronger, and their bodies change from green to a dark brown or black. They mass together in gigantic mobs and take to the air in search of food. Over several generations, locust swarms become so enormous and their destruction so widespread that their invasions are called plagues. Once a plague starts, there is no way to stop it.