ORTHOPTERA. 137 



I had before been wholly unacquainted. At least, their history, 

 as given by respectable persons, is in a great measure novel. 

 They appear at different periods, in different years; but the time 

 of their continuance seems to be the same. This year, (1798), 

 they came four weeks earlier than in 1797, and disappeared four 

 weeks sooner. As I had no opportunity of examining them, I 

 cannot describe their form or their size. Their favorite food is 

 clover and maize. Of the latter they devour the part which is 

 called the silk ; the immediate means of fecundating the ear ; and 

 thus prevent the kernel from coming to perfection. But their vo- 

 racity extends to almost every vegetable ; even to the tobacco 

 plant and the burdock. Nor are they confined to vegetables 

 alone. The garments of laborers, hung up in the field while they 

 are at work, these insects destroy in a few hours ; and with the 

 same voracity they devour the loose particles which the saw 

 leaves upon the surface of pine boards, and which, when separ- 

 ated, are termed saw-dust. The appearance of a board fence, 

 from which the particles had been eaten in this manner, and which 

 I saw, was novel and singular ; and seemed the result, not of the 

 operations of the plane, but of attrition. At times, particularly a 

 little before their disappearance, they collect in clouds, rise high 

 in the atmosphere, and take extensive flights, of which neither the 

 cause, nor the direction has hitherto been discovered. I was au- 

 thentically informed that some persons, employed in raising the 

 steeple of the church in Williamstown, were, while standing near 

 the vane, covered by them, and saw, at the same time, vast 

 swarms of them flying far above their heads. It is to be observed, 

 however, that they customarily return, and perish on the very 

 grounds which they have ravaged." Through the kindness of the 

 Rev. L. W. Leonard, of Dublin, New Hampshire, I have been 

 favored with specimens of the destructive locusts which occa- 

 sionally appear in that part of New England, and which, most 

 probably, are of the same species as the insects mentioned by 

 President Dwight. They prove to be the little red-legged locusts, 

 whose ravages on our salt-marshes I have already recorded. In 

 the summer of 1838, the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, was 

 infested by insects of this kind ; and I was informed by a young 

 gentleman, from that place, then a student in Harvard University, 

 18 



