EFFECTS OF LOCUSTS ON TREES. 



17 



The Cicada is too well known to need a 

 description here ; I will therefore only no- 

 tice its habits, as they have fallen under my 

 own observation, and make a few extracts 

 from an article published in the National 

 Gazette, and written b}^ my brother, Mr. 

 Thomas W. Morris, in 1834. 



The eggs require forty-two days to 

 mature in the branches of the tree ; they 

 then burst the shell and appear, a minute 

 but active fac simile of the parent in the 

 larva state, except the absence of the wing 

 cases ; they require but a few moments to 

 stretch their limbs and prepare for labor, 

 before they unloose their hold on the twigs 

 on which they had been deposited, and fall 

 to the ground, where they immediately dis- 

 appear in search of food in the roots of the 

 tree. If the eggs that are about to hatch, 

 be placed over a glass jar filled with earth, 

 the young grubs will, in a few hours after 

 their escape from the eggs, be seen at the 

 bottom of the jar, endeavoring to force 

 their way still deeper. When first hatch- 

 ed, they are quite white, but soon change 

 to yellowish brown. They exist in sepa- 

 rate tribes, occupying different sections of 

 country; making their appearance in dif- 

 ferent years, but invariably after the same 

 interval of time. For a year or two before 

 the arrival of the main body, a few scat- 

 tered individuals are generally found, 



Mr. Morris thus describes them, as no- 

 ticed by him at various times and places : 



" In November, 1812, I found a large 

 number of locust grubs under an old apple 

 tree, between two and three feet below the 



I surface, having every appearance of such 

 as now issue from the ground, and nearly 

 of the same size. On the 27th of June, 

 1815, 1 saw a portion of one of their count- 

 less tribes west of the Alleghany moun- 

 tains, extending from the summit of the 

 Chestnut ridge into the State of Ohio, be- 

 yond Steubenville ; occupying every shrub 

 and tree, except the pines, and the walnut, 

 hickory, and some of the same family. On 

 my return in the latter end of the following 

 month, not an individual of the m)Tiads 

 which had occupied that space, was to be 

 seen ; the tops of the forests, for upwards 

 of a hundred miles, appeared as if scorch- 

 ed by fire. In 1832, just seventeen years 

 after, I noticed a newspaper paragraph, 

 which slated that the locust had appeared 

 in that neighborhood in large numbers. 



The northern parts of Pennsylvania and 

 New-Jersey were visited by them in 1826, 

 Avhen I had another opportunity of seeing 

 this extraordinary insect. On my way from 

 Easton, through New-Jersey to Milford, in 

 Pike county, Pennsylvania, I fell in with a 

 very numerous body ; how far they extend- 

 ed, I was unable to learn, but they did not 

 disappear from my route until after passing 

 through a large part of Pike county, a dis- 

 tance by the road, of more than sixty miles 

 from the place where I saw them on the 

 23d of May. Trees and shrubs are neces- 

 sary as places of deposit for their eggs ; 

 consequently, though numerous in the State 

 House Square, none were to be found in 

 Washington Square, which, in 1817, Avas 

 destitute of trees," j. a. k. 



The Loudon pension. — The British govern- I on his country by his writings on rural sub- 

 ment has given a life pension of £500 to Meets — a pension quite as worthily bestow- 

 the widow of the late John Loudon, in con- ed as those on warriors, novelists, and po- 

 sideration of the great benefits conferred ) liticians. 

 3 



