102 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
the breadth of one of those swarms was forty miles, and 
their length so great as to occupy four hours in passing over 
the city. So great, also, was the density of this cloud of 
Grasshoppers that it totally intercepted the solar light, so 
that when they flew low the air was so darkened that one 
person could not see another at the distance of twenty 
paces.”* 
The account of a traveler, Mr. Barrow, of their ravages 
in the southern parts of Africa in 1797, is still more strik- 
ing. He says: “ An area of nearly two thousand square 
miles might be said to be literally covered by them. When 
driven into the sea by a northwest wind, they formed, for 
fifty miles upon the shore, a bank three or four feet high, 
and when the wind was southeast their stench was so 
powerful as to be smelled at the distance of a hundred and 
fifty miles.” 
In 1825 the Russian empire was again alarmed by the 
appearance of an innumerable quantity of Grasshoppers, 
of which I had the pleasure (if pleasure it may be called) 
of being an eye-witness. 
I left the city of Moscow in the beginning of the month 
of April, 1825, in order to visit the Crimea, the Caucasus, 
and the countries lying between the Black and Caspian 
seas. Passing through the well-cultivated States (called 
in Russia Governments) of Moscow, Orel, Resan, Char- 
kow, Kiew, and Woronesch, the whole population of these 
States expressed in a lamentable manner their fear of per- 
ishing by famine on account of the enormous quantity of 
* See “Introduction to Entomology, by Kirby and Spence. Lon- 
don, 1818.” 
+ See Versuch einer Darstellung des natiirlicher Reichthums, der 
Grésse und Bevilkerung der Rassischen Ldnder jenseits des Caucasus, 
von B. Jarcer, Mitgliede mehrer gelehrten Gesellshaften. Leipzig, 
C. H. Hartmann, 1830.—Description of the Natural Riches, Extent, 
and Population of the Russian Provinces beyond the Caucasus, by 
B. Jarcer, Member of several Learned Societies. Leipzig, 1830. 
