10 ON ENTOMOLOGY. 



they penetrate through them ; their way can only be impeded by the wa- 

 ters of brooks or canals, as they are apparently terrified at every kind of 

 moisture ; often however they endeavour to gain the opposite bank with 

 the aid of overhanging boughs, and if the stalks of plants or shrubs be 

 laid across the water they pass in close columns over these temporary 

 bridges on which they even seem to rest and enjoy the refreshing cool- 

 ness. Towards sunset the whole swarm gradually collect in parties, and 

 creep up the plants or encamp on slight eminences. On cold cloudy or 

 rainy days they do not travel. As soon as they acquire wings they pro- 

 gressively disperse, but still fly about in large swarms. Even our 

 own island has been alarmed by the appearance of Locusts a considerable 

 number having visited us in 1748, but they happily perished without pro- 

 pagating. Other parts of Europe have not been so fortunate, in 1650 a cloud 

 of Locusts, were seen to enter Russia in three different places, and they 

 afterwards spread themselves over Poland and Lithuania in such astonish- 

 ing multitudes that the air was darkened and the earth covered with their 

 numbers ; in some places they were seen lying dead, heaped upon each 

 other to the depth of four feet, in others they covered the surface of the 

 ground like a black cloth ; the trees bent with their weight, and the damage 

 the country sustained exceeded computation. They have frequently come 

 also from Africa into Italy and Spain. In the year 591 an infinite army of 

 Locusts, of a size unusally large, ravaged a considerable part of Italy ; and 

 being at last cast into the sea (as seems for the most part to be their fate) 

 a pestilence, it is alledged, arose from their stench, which carried off nearly 

 a million of men arid beasts. In the Venetian territory, likewise, in 1478 

 more than 30,000 persona are said to have perished in a famine, chiefly 

 occasioned by the depredation of Locusts 



The MOLE CRICKET (Gryllotalpa vulgaris) is but too well known in 

 gardens and cornfields in some parts of England, such as Wiltshire and 

 Hampshire, though it is comparatively rare or unknown in others. It bur- 

 rows in the ground, and forms extensive galleries similar to those of the 

 mole though smaller, and these may always be recognized by a slightly 

 elevated ridge of mould ; for the insect does -not throw up the earth 

 in hillocks like the mole, but gradually as it digs along in the manner of 

 the field mouse ; in this way it commits great ravages in hot beds, and 

 in gardens upon pease, young cabbages, and other vegetables, the roots 

 of which it is said to devour. The nest which the female constructs 

 for her eggs in the beginning of May, is well worthy of attention. The 

 Rev. Mr. White, of Selborne, tells us that a gardener, at a house where 

 he was on a visit, while mowing grass by the side of a canal, chanced 

 to strike his scythe too deep and pared off a large piece of turf, laying- 

 open to view, an interesting scene of domestic economy : there was a 

 pretty chamber dug in the clay, of the form and about the dimensions it 

 would have had if moulded by an egg ; the walls being neatly smoothed 

 and polished. In this little cell were deposited about a hundred 

 s, of the size and form of caraway comfits, and of a dull tarnished 



