162 LOCUST. 



thoroughly soaked with wet, they crept along 

 in quest of holes in the earth, dung, and 

 straw ; where, being sheltered from the rains, 

 they laid a vast number of eggs, which stuck 

 together by a yiscid juice, and were longer 

 and smaller than what is commonly called 

 an ant's egg, very like grains of oats. The 

 females having laid their eggs, died, like the 

 silkworm : and we Transylvanians found, by 

 experience, that the swarms which entered 

 our fields by the Red Tower, did not seem 

 to intend remaining there, but were thrown 

 to the ground by the force of the wind, and 

 there laid their eggs ; a vast number of 

 which being turned up and crushed by the 

 plough, in the beginning of the ensuing 

 spring, yielded a yellowish juice. In the 

 spring of 1748, certain little blackish worms 

 were seen lying in the fields, and among the 

 bushes, sticking together, and collected in 

 clusters, not unlike the hillocks of moles or 

 ants. As nobody knew what they were, so 

 there was little or no notice taken of them> 

 and in May they were covered by the shoot- 

 ing of the corn sown in winter ; but the 

 subsequent June discovered what those worms 



