31 



corn would in onenight be swallowed up bj that devourinn; legion. The care of the magistrates 

 was that the towns of Indians should all go out into the fields with trumpets, and what other 

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

 considerable and profitable to the commonweath ; and strange it was to see how the loud 

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

 danger of them. Where they lighted in the mountains and highways, there they left behind 

 them their young ones, which were found creeping upon the ground, ready to threaten such a 

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

 mattocks and shovels, to dig hng trenches and therein to bury all the young ones. I'hus, 

 with much trouble to the poor Indians and their great pains (yet alter much hurt and loss in 

 many places) was that flying pestilence chased awuy out of the country to the South Sea, 

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

 whilst 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 cf the above account, the locusts arc recorded to 

 have laid waste, on several occasions, all the vegetation of Mexico und Yucatan, and to have 

 produced famine and much consequent suffering among the people. To California, they ap, 

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

 Bareo, who lived for thirty years in that country as a missionary among the heathen Indians, 

 lelates that irom the arrival of the Jesuits in 1697 to the year 1722, thoy were free from any 

 plague of locusts, but that in this year they caused fearful sufferings among the inhabitants. 

 In 174C) and for three years following without intermission, they again invaded the land ; 

 after this they did not appear until 1753 and 1754 ; and finallj', before the expulsion of the 

 Jesuits, in 1765 and the two following years. Clavigero, in his History of California, 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 mako 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 witli a glutinous matter, which appears like a cord 

 of fine silk. These are deposited together and dropped into a small hole which 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 grasshoppers has no particular time, but is dependent upon the 

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

 tember or early in October Their life, from birth to death, lasts ten months, 



during which they cast their coats twice and change their colours five times. When the wings 

 liave become of sufficient 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 atmosphere, of which the rays of the sun cast a shadow as they fly. Tiiey unite 

 in masses of ten to twelve thousand, always following their conductors and flying in a direct 

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

 height their guides comluet 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 alight and speedily devour 

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

 are seen by a new swarm of their fellows, there is n it anything 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 crops, green trees, 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 prodactions cause great famines and 

 sickness among the inhabitants and neophytes of the establishments. At one time immense 

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

 their corruption and decay." 



In Upper 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 182S, they ate up — we are told 

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



