ORTHOPTERA. — LOCUSTIDiE. 459 



first volume of the Royal Asiatic Society's Transactions, it appears 

 to be part of the duty of the provincial governors to see to the 

 destruction of these obnoxious insects, and to erect stations for 

 giving rewards for them. An amusing account is given in the Penny 

 Magazine, 1838, of the American mode of destroying the locusts, 

 which occasionally swarm in the United States. 



The powers of locomotion possessed by these insects exceed those 

 of the other saltatorial Orthoptera : they leap with greater force, 

 and their flight (at least in the large migratory species) is much 

 more continuous, and far higher than that of the others; their powers 

 of devastation are also far more excessive ; for as they are produced 

 in vast numbers, and keep in an imperfect state of society together, 

 they soon destroy the vegetation in the spot where they were pro- 

 duced ; whence they take flight in great swarms to adjoining districts, 

 whereby they have obtained the name of migratory locusts. So 

 great indeed is the number of individuals of which one of these 

 swarms is composed that the sky is darkened during their passage, 

 and the spots where they alight almost instantly assume the appear- 

 ance of a barren wilderness. Even their destruction is, in itself, a 

 fresh source of danger — the air being filled for miles with the putrefy- 

 ing effluvia of their decaying carcases. The species which, in 

 Europe, inflicts the greatest destruction, is the G. migratorius * 

 Linn. I must, however, refer to the works of Kirby and Spence, 

 Latreille, &c., for more ample details relative to the periodical ap- 

 pearance of the flights of locusts, which have at various times 

 spread dismay throughout Europe, &c. See also the Atti cle Real 

 Instil, de Napoli, 1811; Dryander's Catalogue of the Banksian Li- 

 brary, art. Locust ; Frankland's Travels to Constantinople, Lon- 

 don, 1829; Shaw's TVra'e/* m Barhary (11^^) ; Barrow's Travels in 

 South Africa, p. 257. ; Pallas's Travels in Russia, vo\. ii. p. 422.; Irby 

 and Mangle's Travels in Egypt, p. 443.; Smernove, in Linn. Trans. 

 vol. XV. p. 507. In The Gentleman s Magazine, it is noticed, that at 

 the end of August, 1742, great damage was done to the pastures, 



* It is certain that numerous species have been confounded together under tlie 

 name of L- migratoria ; the true L. migratoria is the species wliich occurs in cen- 

 tral Europe, but the species which devastate the East, Arabia, Barbary, ilc. are 

 doubtless, distinct. M. Lefebvrc was witness to the fall of a swann of (E(li|)oda 

 cruciata Cliarp. at Smyrna. {Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, 1833, p. 338.) Locusta italica, 

 according to lonicus, is the only destructive species in Cephalonia. 



