THE RED-LEGGED LOCUSTS. 169 



legged species (Acrydium femur-rubrum), (Fig. 80, p. 174,) 

 intermingled occasionally with some larger kinds. These, 

 in certain seasons, almost entirely consume the grass of these 

 marshes, from whence they then take their course to the up- 

 lands, devouring, hi their way, grass, corn, and vegetables, 

 till checked hy the early frosts, or by the close of the nat- 

 ural term of their existence. When a scanty crop of hay 

 has been gathered from the grounds which these puny pests 

 have ravaged, it becomes so tainted with the putrescent 

 bodies of the dead locusts contained in it, that it is rejected 

 by horses and cattle. In this country locusts are not dis- 

 tinguished from grasshoppers, and are generally, though in- 

 correctly, comprehended under the same name, or under that 

 of flying grasshoppers. They are, however, if we make 

 allowance for their inferior size, quite as voracious and in- 

 jurious to vegetation during the young or larva and pupa 

 states, when they are not provided with wings, as they are 

 when fully grown. In our newspapers I have sometimes 

 seen accounts of the devastations of grasshoppers, which 

 could only be applicable to some of our locusts. 



At various tunes they have appeared in great abundance 

 in different parts of New England. It is stated that, in 

 Maine, "during dry seasons, they often appear in great mul- 

 titudes, and are the greedy destroyers of the half-parched 

 herbage." " In 1749 and 1754 they were very numerous 

 and voracious ; no vegetables escaped these greedy troops ; 

 they even devoured the potato tops ; and in 1743 and 1756 

 they covered the whole country and threatened to devour 

 everything green. Indeed, so great was the alarm they oc- 

 casioned among the people, that days of fasting and prayer 

 were appointed," * on account of the threatened calamity. 

 The southern and western parts of New Hampshire, the 

 northern and eastern parts of Massachusetts, and the south- 

 ern part of Vermont, have been overrun by swarms of these 



* See Williamson's History of Maine, Vol. I. pp. 102, 103, and compare with 

 p. 172 of the same work. 



22 



