On the American Locust. 185 



This injury is effected by the female. In depositing 

 her eggs, she makes incisions in the twigs and branches 

 of the trees, which ultimately occasion the death of 

 those twigs, &c, above the wounded parts. This will 

 the more readily be believed, when it is known, that 

 the incisions are not merely superficial, or through the 

 bark. They often extend as deep as the medulla, or 

 pith, of the twig. 



In travelling through a part of the State of New- York, 

 in the year 1797, I was capable of pointing out, by the 

 dead twigs and leaves of many of the forest-trees, the 

 ravages which had been committed by the locusts, 

 more than two months before. But the injuries are 

 still more obvious in young apple -orchards, which are 



sometimes nearly destroyed by these insects. 1 have, 



in a memoir presented to the American Philosophical 

 Society, pointed out the best means of preventing the 

 injurious effects of the locusts, among young and use- 

 ful trees. This memoir will be published in the Socie- 

 ty's Transactions. 



It is a fortunate circumstance, that an insect capable 

 of doing the injuries which this does sometimes occa- 

 sion, is the favourite food of various species of animals. 

 Immense numbers of the locusts are destroyed by the 

 hogs, some weeks before the period at which these in- 

 sects emerge from the ground : and after they have ap- 

 peared, they continue to be the food of hogs, and are 

 greedily devoured by the different species of squirrels, 

 such as Sciurus cinereus, S. striatus, &c. Even cats 



