332 INSECTS ABROAD. 



mottlings extend to the head, where they assume shapes bearing 

 some resemblance to Arabic letters. In his " Thalaba " Southey 

 makes an ingenious use of these marks : — 



" The admiring girl surveyed 

 His outspread sails of green, 

 His gauzy underwings, 

 One closely to the grass-green body furled, 

 One ruffled in the fall and half unclosed. 

 She viewed his jet-orbed eyes, 

 His glossy gorget bright 

 Green glittering in the sun ; 

 His plumy, pliant horns, 

 That, nearer as she gazed, 

 Bent tremblingly before her breath. 

 She marked his yellow-circled front 



With lines mysterious veined ; 

 And ' Knowest thou what is here inscribed, 



My father I ' said the maid. 

 1 Look, Thalaba, perchance these lines 



Are in the letters of the King, 

 Nature's own language written there.' " 



The vast masses in which these insects appear have been too 

 often described to need more than a passing allusion. Suffice it 

 to say that they come in great clouds, which look in the distance 

 like those of an approaching thunderstorm, and that where they 

 settle, they consume every green leaf and grass blade, even 

 devouring the young and tender twigs of the trees. They seem 

 to have but little power of guiding their flight, but are forced 

 to be blown by the wind in any direction which it may happen 

 to take ; and when a swarm is seen in the far distance, the 

 unhappy agriculturists know that there is no hope for their 

 crops but in a change of wind. Various means have been 

 tried, but none have succeeded in arresting or even mitigating 

 the damage which a few hours' visit can work among the 

 vegetation. 



They are not tenacious of life, and a cold wind will kill 

 them "almost at once, while myriads upon myriads perish 

 should they be blown out to sea. In such a case, their bodies 

 have been known to form a continuous wall along the sea-shore, 

 extending for several miles in length, and giving out an abso- 

 lutely intolerable odour 



