STRAIGHT-WINGED INSECTS. 147 



lamentable manner their fear of perishing by famine 

 on account of the enormous quantity of the then 

 wingless Grasshoppers which inundated the Desert 

 Prairies between Kiew and Odessa, and between the 

 Don and the Wolga towards Astrachan and the Cau- 

 casus, and which in the following months of May and 

 June would have full grown wings, and would then fly 

 in endless swarms towards the north in order to devour 

 the luxuriant crops of the well cultivated fields, mead- 

 ows and orchards of those States. I was travelling in 

 great haste, going about 14 wersts or eight English miles 

 per hour, night and day, (which was then considered 

 great speed,) when I was suddenly checked in my 

 speed in the desert prairie lands about 50 miles behind 

 Kiew. Here the ground, as far as the eye could reach, 

 was covered with wingless Grasshoppers, nearly two 

 inches long, and laying piled up one upon another to 

 the height of two feet. Of course the carriage drag- 

 ged heavily as if drawn through a deep mould, which 

 prevented the horses from trotting or even walking 

 fast, and the revolving wheels were constantly cov- 

 ered from two to three inches high with mashed Grass- 

 hoppers. This state of things continued through the 

 goverment of Ekatharinoslaw and Cherson to the 

 Black Sea, a distance of about 400 miles. The sight 

 of such an immense number of the most destructive 

 and rapacious insects, justly occasioned a melancholy 

 foreboding of famine and pestilence, in case they should 



