44 ORTHOPTERA. 



The Oedipoda Migratoria, or migratory locust, is the 

 species which sometimes visits Europe. In the year 

 1748 these insects visited Europe in immense multitudes. 

 Charles XII. and his army, then in Bessarabia, were 

 stopped in their course. It is said that the swarms were 

 four hours passing over Breslau. Nor did England 

 escape, for a swarm fell near Bristol and ravaged the 

 country in the month of July of the same year. Here 

 in Shropshire and Staffordshire they did great damage 

 by eating the leaves of the apple trees and the oaks, 

 which latter looked as bare as at Christmas. The rooks 

 did good service in this case. Locusts have been seen 

 in Yorkshire in 1845, 1846, and 1847 ; in 1846 near 

 London, and in many parts of England, and even in 

 Scotland. The Acridium peregrinum (see figure 5) of 

 Arabia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia, which, together 

 with the migratory locust, is, I believe, the species 

 more especially alluded to in the Bible, occasionally 

 visits the South of Europe, and a writer remarks upon 

 the occurrence of this species in various parts of Eng- 

 land in October, 1869. In the South of France much 

 damage is frequently done by these pests, but in Asia 

 and Africa, whence they chiefly abound, their armies 

 are fearfully numerous. The Locustidse have no visible 

 ovipositor, and no sound-producing organ as drum and 

 file, the chirping sounds being produced by rubbing the 

 legs and wdng-cases ; their antennae are short. The 

 family is represented in England by the well-known 

 grasshoppers, whose shrill chirping is so familiar to all 

 wanderers in the meadows in hot summer weatlier. 



The GrylUdce have long antennae, and a long oviposi- 

 tor in the female; the wing-covers of the males are 



