PAcic-iRD.] I]SrSECTS OF THE GARDEN. 3 



catcrpillivr answering to the description of the array worm 

 had been noticed in New England at long intervals since 

 1743, its appearance in 1861 took all by surprise, as hosts of 

 them appeared full grown and busy at tlieir work, foraging 

 upon our wheat and cereals, cutting down field after field of 

 grain as they marched their columns in dense black masses 

 over stone walls and through fences, often bridging ditches 

 filled with tar or burning straw with the dead bodies of their 

 comi)anions ; while tlieir ranks were thinned by hosts of do- 

 mestic fowls and other birds which followed hard upon their 

 rear, or disputed their onward march. They had hardly be- 

 gun their work ia New York, when their appearance was 

 heralded in the vicinity of Boston. But a few days elapsed, 

 and their simultaneous appearance in Bangor, at the Forks 

 of the Kennebec and tlie limits of civilization on the Penob- 

 scot River was announced in the papers, and the cry of their 

 coming was caught up on the river St, John. Millions of 

 dollars worth of grain were lost to the country by the rav- 

 ages of this one species of caterpillar. 



The same season the appearance of the grain aphis in 

 hosts which blackened the tops of waving grain ripening for 

 the harvest, was no less marvellous, as the insect had been 

 comparatively unknown before. The range of the grain 

 aphis was still greater than that of the army worm. Though 

 hundreds of plant lice pitted against one army worm might 

 produce less visible effects, yet the continual depletion by 

 these pygmies in drawing out the sap of the gi'ain stalk must 

 have told upon the quality of the grain and of the seed for 

 several j-ears succeeding. 



The strange history of the locust, its wide spread migra- 

 tions, its sudden appearance and departure, the mysteries 

 of its birthplace, the ruin consetiucut on its devastations, 

 are familiar to every reader of the Uible, and are repeated 

 in ancient and modern accounts of oriental travel. These 

 scourges of mankind, these insect Vandals and Goths have 



3 



