402 RAVAGES OF INSECTS. 



troop divides into companies that surround the small shrubs, 

 or tufts of grass, or ant-hills, in such thick patches, that 

 they appear like so many swarms of bees ; and in this 

 manner they rest till daylight. At these times it is that 

 the farmers have any chance of destroying them ; this they 

 sometimes effect by driving among them a flock of two or 

 three thousand sheep, by whose restlessness great numbers 

 of them are trampled to death. The year 1797 was the 

 third of their continuance in Sneuwberg ; and their increase 

 had been more than a million-fold from year to year. 



Tins district, however, had been entirely free from them 

 for ten years preceding their visit in 1794. Their former 

 exit was singular : all the full-grown insects were driven 

 into Ihe sea by a tempestuous north-west wind, and were 

 afterwards cast up on the beach, where they formed a bank 

 of three or four feet high, and extending to a distance of 

 nearly fifty miles. When this mass became putrid, and 

 the wind was at south-east, the stench was sensibly felt in 

 several parts of Sneuwberg, although distant at least a 

 hundred and fifty miles.* 



Pallas gives a more detailed account of the daily proceed- 

 ings of the larvfe of the Italian locust (^Locusta ItaJica, 

 Leach). "In serene weather," he tells us, "the locusts 

 are in full motion in the morning, immediately after the 

 evaporation of the dew ; and if no dew has fallen, they 

 appear as soon as the sun imparts his genial warmth. At 

 first, some are seen running about like messengers among 

 the reposing swarms, which are lying partly compressed 

 upon the ground at the side of small eminences, and partly 

 attached to tall plants and shrubs. Shortly after the whole 

 body begins to move forward in one direction, and with 

 little deviation. They resemble a swarm of ants, all taking 

 the same course, at small distances, but without touching 

 each other : they uniformly travel towards a certain region 

 as fast as a fly can run, and without leaping, unless pursued ; 

 in which case, indeed, they disperse, but soon collect again 

 and follow their former route. In this manner they ad- 



* Barrow's Travels in South Africa, p. 257. 



