148 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



southern and western parts of New Hampshire, the northern 

 and eastern parts of Massachusetts, and the southern part of 

 Vermont have been overrun by swarms of these miscalled 

 grasshoppers, and have suffered more or less from their depre- 

 dations. Among the various accounts which I have seen, the 

 following, extracted from the Travels of the late President 

 Dwight,* seems to be the most full and circumstantial. " Ben- 

 nington (Vermont), and its neighborhood, have for some time 

 past been infested by grasshoppers (locusts) of a kind with 

 which I had before been wholly unacquainted. At least, their 

 history, as given by respectable persons, is in a great measure 

 novel. They appear at different periods, in different years ; but 

 the time of their continuance seems to be the same. This 

 year (1798) they came four weeks earlier than in 1797, and 

 disappeared four weeks sooner. As I had no opportunity of 

 examining them, I cannot describe their form or their size. 

 Their favorite food is clover and maize. Of the latter they 

 devour the part which is called the silk ; the immediate means 

 of fecundating the ear; and thus prevent the kernel from 

 coming to perfection. But their voracity extends to almost 

 every vegetable; even to the tobacco plant and the burdock. 

 Nor are they confined to vegetables alone. The garments of 

 laborers, hung up in the field while they are at work, these 

 insects destroy in a few hours ; and with the same voracity 

 they devour the loose particles which the saw leaves upon the 

 surface of pine boards, and which, when separated, are termed 

 sawdust. The appearance of a board fence, from which the 

 particles had been eaten in this manner, and which I saw, was 

 novel and singular; and seemed the result, not of the opera- 

 tions of the plane, but of attrition. At times, particularly a 

 little before their disappearance, they collect in clouds, rise high 

 in the atmosphere, and take extensive flights, of which neither 

 the cause nor the direction has hitherto been discovered. I 

 was authentically informed that some persons, employed in 

 raising the steeple of the church in Williamstown, were, while 



* Travels in New England and New York, by Timothy Dwight. Vol. II. 

 p. 403. 



