ORTHOPTERA. It9 



standing near the vane, covered by them, and saw, at the same 

 time, vast swarms of them flying far above their heads. It is to 

 be observed, however, that they customarily return, and perish 

 on the very grounds which they have ravaged." Through the 

 kindness of the Rev. L. W. Leonard, of Dublin, New Hamp- 

 shire, I have been favored with specimens of the destructive 

 locusts which occasionally appear in that part of New England, 

 and which, most probably, are of the same species as the in- 

 sects mentioned by President Dwight. They prove to be the 

 little red-legged locusts, whose ravages on our salt-marshes I 

 have already recorded. In the summer of 1838, the vicinity 

 of Baltimore, Maryland, was infested by insects of this kind ; 

 and I was informed by a young gentleman, from that place, 

 then a student in Harvard College, that they were so thick 

 and destructive in the garden and grounds of his father, that 

 the negroes were employed to drive them from the garden with 

 rods; and in this way they were repeatedly whipped out of 

 the grounds, leaping and flying before the extended line of 

 castigators like a flock of fowls. Some of these insects were 

 brought to me by the same gentleman, on his return to the 

 University, at the end of the summer vacation, and they tvirned 

 out to be specimens of the red-legged locusts already men- 

 tioned. 



It is not to be supposed that these are the only depredatory 

 locusts in this country, Massachusetts, alone, produces a 

 large number of species, some of which have never been de- 

 scribed ; and the habits of many of them have not been fully 

 investigated. The difficulty which I have met with in ascer- 

 taining, from mere verbal reports, or from the accounts that 

 occasionally appear in our pubhc prints, the scientific names 

 of the noxious insects wliich are the subjects of such remarks, 

 and the impossibility, without this knowledge of their names, 

 of fixing upon the true culprits, has induced me to draw up, 

 in this treatise, brief descriptions of all our locusts, as a guide 

 to other persons in their investigations. 



All the locusts of Massachusetts, that are known to me, 

 may be included in three large groups or genera, viz. : Aery- 

 dium (of Geoffroy and Latreille), Locusta ( GrijUus Locnsta of 



