SI 



corn would in onenisjht be swallowed up by that devouring legion. The care of the magistrates 

 was that the town.- of" Indians should all go out into the fi. Ids with trumpets, and what other 

 instruments they had, to make a noise and to affright thcni from those places which are most 

 considerable and prcifitable to the ooninionweath ; and strange it was to see how the loud 

 noise of the Indians and sounding of tiio trumpets defended some fields from the fear and 

 danger of them. Where they lightrd in the mountains ^nd highways, there thry left behind 

 them their young ones, which were found ciee|)ing ujion tlie ground, ready to threaten such a 

 second year's plague, if not prevented : wherelbre all the towns were called, with spades, 

 mattocks and shovels, to dig f ng trenches and therein to buiy all the youn;r ones. Thus, 

 with much trouble to the poor Indians and their great pains (yet after much iiurt and loss in 

 many places) was that flying pestilence chased aw:iy out of tlie country to the South Sea, 

 wlierc it was thought to be consuiued by the ocean, and to have found a grave in the waters, 

 whil-st the young ones found it in the land. Yet they were not all so buried, but that shortly 

 some appeared, which, being not so many in number as before, were with the former diligence 

 soon overcome." 



About a century later than the date of the above account, the locusts are recorded to 

 have laid waste, on several occasions, all the vegetation of Mexico and Yucat.in, and to have 

 produced famine and much consequent suffering among the people. 'J'o Califnrnia, they ap- 

 pear to have been especially partial from the earliest times. The Jesuit Father Michael del 

 Barco, who lived lor thirty year^ in that country as a missionary among the heathen Indians, 

 relates that from the arrival of the Jesuits in l(i!)7 to the year 1722, they were free from any 

 plague of locusts, but th-it in this year they caused fearful sufierings among the inhabitants. 

 in 1746 and for three yeais following without intermission, thr^y again invaded the land : 

 after this they did not appear until 17.">3 and 1 7."i4 : and finally, before the expulsion of the 

 Jesuits, in 17(i5 and the two following years. Clavigero, in his History of Calilbruia, gives 

 a very interesting account of these .■several invasions, and describes the appearance and 

 natural history of the insect with much minuteness; from his work we make the following 

 extracts : — 



" The female, at the latter part of July or early in August, lays a number of fine small 

 eggs of a yellowish colour, in a string, united with a glutinous matter, which appears like a cord 

 of fiue silk. These are deposited together and dropped into a small liole wiiicli they make in 

 the ground with a small apparatus attached to their tails. Each female lays from seventy to 

 eighty eggs, and sometimes more. 



" The birth of these new grassho|ipers has no particular time, but is dep<'ndent upon the 

 early or late appearance of the rains, but they generally hatch during llii- latter part of Sep- 



timber or early in October '1 heir life, from birth to death, lasts ten months, 



duiing which ihey cast their coats twice and change their coluurstive times. When the wings 

 have become of sullicient strength and the body at its maturity, they then begin to ascend 

 into the air and fly like birds, and commence their ravages in every direction, desolating the 

 fields of every green thing. Their numbers become so extraordinary, that they soon form 

 clouds in the atmospheie, of which the rays of the sun cast a shadow as they fly. They unite 

 in ma.vses of ten to twelve thousand, alw.iys Ibilowing their conductors and flying in a direct 

 line without falling behind, for they consume every growing thing before them. To whatever 

 height their guides conduct them to obtain a sight of their food they follow, and as soon as 

 growing crops or any verdure is sighted, instantly the swarm will aligiit and speedily devour 

 and devastate the fields around to that extent, and with that promptitude, that wlien they 

 are seen by a new swarm of their fellows, there is not anytiiing more left to injure or con- 

 sume. 



" This lamentable insect plague is bad enough in old and cultivated countries, but in 

 the miserable peninsula of California, where they eat up the ero(xs, green frees, fruits, and 

 pastures, they cause great mortality in the domestic animals of the missions, and with the 

 efFect of their ravages on the cereals and other garden ])rodactions cause great famines and 

 ^icknes8 among the inhabitants and neophytes of the establishments. .\t one time immense 

 multitudes of the.se voracious insects died, infecting the air dreadfully with the stench of 

 their corru|>tion and decay." 



In U[iper Calif rnia. the Franciscan Missions of the early part of the present century, have 

 suffered in a very similar manner. About the year 1827 or lf!2f<, they ate up — we are told 

 — nearly all the growing crops, and occiisioued a great scarcity of wholesome food ; again in 



