affecting the Clover-crops and Pasture-lands. 77 



stragglers from some continental swarm. I dare not here venture 

 on so extensive a subject as the history of this extraordinary 

 plague. '^ 



1 shall merely add that birds feed upon the eggs of grass- 

 hoppers ; swine will feed upon them ; lizards destroy vast 

 quantities ; and Dr. Harris, of Massachusetts, states that " young 

 turkeys, if allowed to go at large during the summer, derive 

 nearly the whole of their subsistence from these insects," f There 

 is another group of locusts, named Acrida^X which is distinguished 

 from the true locust by its very long, slender horns, and the long 

 exserted ovipositor of the females. There are ten species found 

 in Great Britain, but only three or four of them inhabit our fields 

 and meadows ; and as they are nearly all uncommon, I shall here 

 only allude to 



35. ACRIDA VIRIDISSIMA {Linn.), 



a fine green species frequently met with in our fields and 

 marshes in the month of June. 



Ants. 



It is not within our province here to dilate upon the mischief 

 which various species of ants commit in gardens, hot-houses, and 

 even the dwelling-houses in the metropolis ; we must not, how- 

 ever, pass them over unnoticed, as various species inhabit 

 ineadows and pasture-lands, not only disfiguring the surface, but 

 absolutely affecting the value of grass-lands. Alexander says§ — 



" London claj'' is much better adapted for tillap;e tlian for pasturage, though 

 there are some rich soils in pasture ; but when they have been long without 

 cultivation, there appears to be a favourable abode established for ants. AVe 

 have seen many acres of this soil rendered scarcely worth 5s. per acre, by being 

 covered with tumours and ant-hills ; if these acres were cultivated as arable 

 for five years and then laid to grass again, their value would be increased five- 

 fold at the least." 



Ants and their history are so well known that we need here 

 only take a cursory view of them. They belong to the ORDER 

 HymenoPTERA and the FAMILY FormiciDtE. Like bees and 

 wasps, each colony is composed of three different kinds of in- 

 dividuals, which are readily distinguished from each other, viz. 

 males, females, and neuters. Both of the first two are winged, 

 but after impregnation the female pulls off her wings and retires 

 into the earth to deposit her eggs, amounting to four or five 

 thousand. The neuters, which never have any wings, form by 



* Most interesting acconnts of the migratory locust will be found in Kirby and 

 Spence's Introduction to Entomology ; and a figure, descriptions, and an enumera- 

 tion of the species are given in Curtis's Brit. Ent., fol. and pi. 608. 



t Treatise ou Insects injurious to Vegetation, p. 155. 



J Curt. Brit. Ent, fol. and pi. 82. 



§ Treatise on Soils, p. 44. 



