THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 203 



garden pvodiictions, cause great famines and siclmess among 

 the inhabitants and neophytes of the establishments. At one 

 time immense multitudes of these voracious insects died, 

 infecting the air dreadfully with the stench of their corruption 

 and decay." 



Subsequent invasions bear date 1838, 1846, and 1855. In 

 the latter year they extended themselves over a larger surface 

 than had ever before been noticed. They covered the terri- 

 tories of Washington and Oregon, and " every valley of the 

 state of California, ranging from the Pacific Ocean to the 

 eastern base of the Sierra Nevada; covering the entire terri- 

 tories of Utah and New Mexico ; the immense grassy prairies 

 lying on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains ; the dry 

 mountain-valleys of the republic of Mexico, and the countries 

 of Lower California and Central America; and also those 

 portions of Texas which resemble, in ph3'sical characteristics, 

 Utah and California." The records prove that the locusts 

 extended themselves in one year " over a surface comprised 

 within tliirty-eight degrees of latitude, and, in the broadest 

 part, eighteen degrees of longitude." The details of this 

 insect-invasion was frightful in the extreme: before them 

 was a productive paradise, — " orchards, gardens, vineyards, 

 fields of young grain, crops of vegetables, — converted in a 

 single day into a withered, blackened desert." That summer 

 was the hottest that had been known for ten years. During 

 the two following years the invasion was confined to the east 

 of the Rocky Mountains: in Minnesota, Nebraska, and Kansas, 

 the locusts were especially destructive. The following passage 

 is cited by Mr. Bethune from the ' Practical Entomologist,' 

 vol. ii. p. 3 : — 



" 'The last day of August, near the middle of the afternoon, 

 quite a number of grasshoppers were seen alighting, and that 

 number rapidly increased till a little before sunset. The next 

 morning they appeared much thicker, but were only so from 

 having crawled more into the open air to sun themselves. 

 About nine o'clock they began to come thicker and faster 

 from a northerly direction, swarming in the air by myriads, 

 and making a roar like suppressed distant thunder. By 

 looking up to the sun they could be seen as high as the eye 

 could discover an object so small, in appearance like a heavy 

 snow-storm : each grasshopper very much like a very large 



