164 ENTOMOLOGY. 



circumstances which existed to fix them ? This disgust, 

 occasioned by an individual, involuntarily leads many to 

 avoid the whole class. 



The inconveniences suffered from insects, and the 

 injuries produced by them, cause many superficial ob- 

 servers to turn from these to other objects, more worthy 

 their interest. The musquitto, and flea, and bug, leave im- 

 pressions not easily to be effaced. The acute sufferings 

 of a night are not forgotten for years. But when, in addi- 

 tion to these annoyances, our clothes, and furniture, and 

 books, the dearly collected specimens of the naturalist, 

 and the cheaply purchased works of art are all ruined by 

 various species of this class, no slight degree of philoso- 

 phy is required, to revert to these animals without 

 awakening unpleasant associations. And if beside these, 

 we perceive the merciless destroyers blasting our forest 

 and fruit trees, our most valuable vegetables and choicest 

 plants, depriving us of our grain when it is carefully 

 gathered into store-houses, and thus adding to the distresses 

 of the poor, when they are least able to bear them, it is not 

 surprising that a feeling of uneasiness should often A>e 

 awakened ; nor that the mind which dwells upon the 

 clouds only in the horizon, should forget that they are 

 sometimes 'dispelled. The entomologist, even, cannot 

 read the histories of some particular species, without agi- 

 tation. The locust, for example, must ever excite a 

 degree of terror in the minds of the most enthusiastic. 

 Although Arabia appears to be the favorite resort of these 

 dreaded intruders they have visited the other countries 

 of Asia ; and not only these, but Africa and Europe also 

 have felt their unrelenting havbc. From the earliest times 

 we have been taught to shudder at their devastations. 

 And removed as far as we may be from the countries of 

 this genus, we cannot carefully read of the ruin produced 

 by them, without a sensation of horror. Not only do 

 they destroy every part of plants, and trees, and grasses, 

 the root, trunk, leaf, bud, fruit, with merciless voracity, 

 but every green thing is swept'off without distinction ; 

 thus depopulating nations, and carrying more dread with 

 them than the most powerful armies. Nothing but deso- 

 lation can be connected with a host of these, extending 

 five hundred miles, and so dense that when on wing, like 



