294 IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



which seemed literally in motion with them, they proceeded up the road, 

 entered at the gateway into the lawn, then crossed the verandah in front 

 of the house, and through two gardens until they reached afield laid down 

 v.'ith English grasses, on which they committed sad havoc. Many of them 

 did not stop there, as the whole road from the field to the town was black 

 with them. They did not cease migrating for a fortnight, proceeding with 

 a quick and almost running motion over every obstacle, whether walls or 

 shrubs, &c., and making a sudden halt at noon wiierever they chanced to 

 be, and reposing in that spot till four the next morning, v/hen they were 

 again in motion.^ It is probable that these caterpillars were in search, of 

 fresh pasture like others feeding on trees, of which instances are on record 

 of a whole army having at once quitted a forest of which they had entirely 

 consumed the leaves in quest of another. One of these hosts (as we may 

 conclude) is stated by an American nev/spaper, tiie Chmicdon Cuurler^ to 

 have availed themselves in May, 1842, in passing from Richland to the St. 

 Mathew's shore, of a new railway there running over the Cangaree Swamp, 

 as a convenient bridge, in such countless swarms that a solid column of 

 them filled the railway for upwards of a mile, and actually arrested the 

 course of a locomotive drawing a full train of waggons laden with iron, 

 though moving with a speed of ten to twelve miles an hour, and which was 

 only able to proceed by throwing sand on the fore v/heels. 



But of insect emigrants none are more celebrated than the locusts, 

 which, when arrived at their perfect state, assemble, as before related, in 

 such numbers, as in their flight to intercept the sunbeams, and to darken 

 whole countries, passing from one region to another, and laying waste 

 kingdom after kingdom ; but upon these I have already said much, and 

 shall have occasion again to enlarge. The same tendency to shift their 

 quarters has been observed in our little indigenous devourers, the Aphides. 

 Mr. White tells us, that about three o'clock in the afternoon of the 1st of 

 August, 1785, the people of the village of Selborne were surprised by a 

 shower of Aphides or smother flies, which fell in those parts. Those that 

 walked in the street at that juncture found themselves covered with these 

 insects, which settled also upon the hedges and in the gardens, blackening 

 all the vegetables where they alighted. His annuals were discoloured by 

 them, and the stalks of a bed of onions quite coated over for six days after. 

 These armies, he observes, were then, no doubt, in a state of emigration, 

 and shifting their quarters, and might have come from the great hop planta- 

 tions of Kent or Sussex, the wind being all that day in the east. They 

 were observed at the same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all 

 along the vale from Farnham to Alton." A similar emigration of these 

 flies I once witnessed, to my great annoyance, when travelling later in the 

 year, in the Isle of Elj-. The air was so full of them, that they were in- 

 cessantly flying into my eyes, nostrils, &c., and my clothes were covered 

 by them. And in 1814, in the autumn, the Aphides were so abundant for 

 a few days in the vicinity of Ipswich, as to be noticed with surprise by the 

 most incurious observers; as they were September 2Gth and 'iTth, 1836, at 

 Hull, where, as the local newspapers stated, such swarms filled the air 

 that it was impossible to walk with comfort from their entering the eyes 

 and mouth at every step ; and on the same days they were equally numerous 

 at York and Derby. 



1 Trans. Eiit. Soc. Lond. ii. proc. l"i. ~ Nat Hist. ii. 101, 



