136 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



seasons, almost entirely consume the grass of these marshes, from 

 whence they then take their course to the uplands, devouring, in 

 their way, grass, corn, and vegetables, till checked by the early 

 frosts, or by the close of the natural term of their existence. 

 When a scanty crop of hay has been gathered from the grounds 

 which these puny pests have ravaged, it becomes so tainted with 

 the putrescent bodies of the dead locusts contained in it, that it is 

 rejected by horses and cattle. In this country locusts are not 

 distinguished from grasshoppers, and are generally, though incor- 

 rectly, comprehended under the same name, or under that of flying 

 grasshoppers. They are, however, if we make allowance for 

 their inferior size, quite as voracious and injurious to vegetation 

 during the young or larva and pupa states, when they are not pro- 

 vided with wings, as they are when fully grown. In our news- 

 papers I have sometimes seen accounts of the devastations of 

 grasshoppers, which could only be applicable to some of our 

 locusts. At various times they have appeared in great abundance 

 in different parts of New England. It is stated that, in Maine, 

 " during dry seasons, they often appear in great multitudes, and 

 are the greedy destroyers of the half-parched herbage." " In 

 1749 and 1754 they were very numerous and voracious ; no 

 vegetables escaped these greedy troops ; they even devoured the 

 potato tops ; and in 1743 and 1756 they covered the whole 

 country and threatened to devour every thing green. Indeed, so 

 great was the alarm they occasioned among the people, that days of 

 fasting and prayer were appointed*," on account of the threat- 

 ened calamity. The southern and western parts of New Hamp- 

 shire, the northern and eastern parts of Massachusetts, and the 

 southern part of Vermont have been overrun by swarms of these 

 miscalled grasshoppers, and have suffered more or less from their 

 depredations. Among the various accounts which I have seen, 

 the following, extracted from the Travels of the late President 

 Dwightf, seems to be the most full and circumstantial. " Ben- 

 nington (Vermont), and its neighbourhood, have for some time 

 past been infested by grasshoppers (locusts) of a kind, with which 



* See Williamson's History of Maine, Vol. I. p. 102, 103, and compare with 

 p. 172 of the same work. 



t Travels in New England and New York, by Timothy Dwight. Vol. II. p. 403. 



