Capture and Death of a large Alligator. 321 
We were flattering ourselves that the scourge would not come 
near us, when the dark clouds were seen, far over the lake, ap- 
proaching noiselessly, save in the rushing of wings, and soon the 
sun was hid, and night seemed coming before her time. Mile 
upon mile in length moved the deep broad column of this insect 
army ; and the cultivator looked and was silent, for the calamity 
was too overwhelming for words. The sugar cane, the principal 
crop of that country, gave promise of unusual productiveness 
when the destroyer alighted. In amoment nothing was seen, 
over the extended surface, but a black mass of animated matter, 
heaving like a sea over the hopes of the. planter. And when it 
arose to renew its flight, in search of food for the hungry millions 
who had had no share in the feast, it left behind, desolation and 
ruin. Not a green thing stood where it had been, and the very 
earth looked as though no redeeming fertility was left to it. Hu- 
man exertions availed nothing against this enemy ; wherever he 
came he swept like a consuming fire, and the ground appeared 
scorched by his presence. Branches of trees were broken by the 
accumulated weight of countless numbers; and the cattle fled in 
dismay before the rolling waves of this living ocean. The re- 
wards of government and the devices of the husbandman, for his 
own protection, were useless. Myriads of these insects were 
taken and heaped together, till the air for miles was polluted, 
without apparent diminution of their numbers. 
The typhon was the irresistible agent which at last terminated 
their ravages, and drove them before it far into the Pacific. This 
remedy prostrated what the locust had left, but still it was prayed 
for as a mercy, and received with thanksgiving. 
Of the Philippine Islands, Luconia is the one best known ; but 
the world of nature there is yet unexplored ; and the few men of 
science who have been permitted to carry their researches into 
the interior, have either been too easily satisfied with the won- 
‘ders they encountered at the outset, or have not been spared to 
give the result of their labors. The one best fitted for the work, 
who visited that country during my residence in it, was an Ital- 
ian. He penetrated where the white man had not been seen 
since the earliest days of the colony, when the followers of 
Magellan made the circuit of the island, with the daring spirit of 
investigation which distinguished that age of discovery. 
Vol. xxxvit1, No. 2—Jan.-March, 1840. 
