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156

East Greenwich P.O. Dec. 12. 1857.

R.W. Kennicott, M.D.?

Dear Sir: - Tidings from you and from the
far off country where you have been are truly refreshing.
Your father was so kind as to write me last summer, inform-
ing me of your tour. And I am especially rejoiced to
receive authentic specimens of the grasshopper, of the ravages
of which, at Lord Selkirk's settlement, there have been newspaper
accounts several times within the period of my remembrance.
It was my first business to relax the most perfect one of
the specimens, so as to expose its wings, and I have just
been examining it - though night came on before I had
looked carefully at every part. My strong conviction is, that
it is not distinct from the femur. rubrum - of which there
are many varieties, which differ so much that some enthusiast
hereafter will try to make five or six different species out of
it - as has been done with the very similar Acrydium Italicum
of Europe. I have selected one point after another in these
Pembina specimens, which I thought was different from the
same part, in femur. rubrum; but on looking over one after
another of my specimens of the latter, I have soon come to one,