LOCUST-BORER. 



LOOSENESS. 



ticularly our domestic fowls, which eat great 

 numbers of grasshoppers, locusts, and even 

 crickets. Young turkeys, if allowed to go at 

 large during the summer, derive nearly the 

 whole of their subsistence from these insects." 

 (Harris's Treatise on Insects.") 



In England, Locust is the common name of 

 a species of insects forming a group or sub- 

 genus of the gryllus of Linngeus. They have 

 coloured elytra, and large wings, disposed, 

 when at rest, in straight, fan-like folds, as in 

 other orthoptera, and frequently exhibiting 

 bright blue, green, or red colours. The thorax 

 is capacious, to afford room for the powerful 

 muscles of the wings, and is marked in many 

 species with one or more crests, or wart-like 

 prominences. The locusts fly by starts, but 

 frequently rise to a considerable height. Cer- 

 tain species, called " migratory locusts," unite 

 in incalculable numbers, and emigrate, resem- 

 bling, in their passage through the air, a dense 

 cloud : wherever they alight, all signs of vegeta- 

 tion quickly disappear, and cultivated grounds 

 are left a desert. One species (jlcridium migra- 

 torium, Latr.), occasionally commits devasta- 

 tions in the south of Europe and Poland; and 

 stragglers have sometimes reached England, a 

 circumstance which happened in 1748: but 

 they soon perished. To our ideas of the asso- 

 ciation of insects, the swarms of locusts which 

 have occasionally appeared in oriental coun- 

 tries seem almost incredible. Major Moor states 

 that a flight which ravaged the Mahratta coun- 

 try, and which he saw at Poonah, extended in a 

 dense column 500 miles, and hid the sun like 

 an eclipse. On that occasion, the natives fried 

 and ate them. The devastation which they 

 make is forcibly described by the prophet Joel: 

 "The land is as the garden of Eden before 

 them, and behind them a desolate wilderness." 



LOCUST-BORER. See BORERS. 



LOCUST, HONEY or SWEET. See HONEY 

 LOCUST. 



LOCUST TREE (Hymcnaea, from Hymen, 

 the god of marriage ; in reference to the two 

 leaflets). The species of locust tree are highly 

 ornamental; they delight to grow in loam and 

 peat, and cuttings will root in sand under a 

 glass in heat. The young plants should be 

 planted out in the autumn of the second year, 

 cutting them down within three inches of the 

 ground. They must be preserved from the at- 

 tacks of hares and rabbits, which are very 

 destructive to them. See ACACIA. 



LOCUST TREE CATERPILLARS. These 

 are produced from the eggs of a butterfly be- 

 longing to a tribe which, from their habit of 

 flying but a short distance at a time with a 

 jerking motion, have acquired the name of 

 skippers (Hesperiadce or Hesperians). They 

 frequent grassy places, low bushes, and thick- 

 ets. When they alight, they usually keep the 

 hind-wings spread out horizontally, and the 

 fore-wings partially closed, but not entirely so, 

 as in other butterflies. 



The Tityrus skipper (Eudamus tityrus), and 

 its offspring, are thus described by Dr. Harris. 

 Wings brown ; first pair with a transverse, 

 semi-transparent band across the middle, and 

 a few spots towards the tip, of a honey-yellow 

 colour; hind-wings with a short rounded tail 

 736 



on the hind angles, and a broad silvery band 

 across the middle of the under-side. Expands 

 from 2 to 2 inches. 



" This large and beautiful insect makes its 

 appearance, from the middle of June till after 

 the beginning of July, upon sweet-scented 

 flowers, which it visits during the middle of 

 the day. Its flight is vigorous and rapid, and 

 its strength is so great that it cannot be cap- 

 tured without danger of its being greatly de- 

 faced in its struggles to escape. The females 

 lay their eggs, singly, on the leaves of the 

 common locust tree (Robinia pseudacacia), and 

 on those of the viscid locust (Robinia tnscoso), 

 which is much cultivated here as an orna- 

 mental tree. The caterpillars are hatched in 

 July, and when quite small conceal themselves 

 under a fold of the edge of a leaf, which is 

 bent over their bodies and secured by means 

 of silken threads. When they become larger, 

 they attach two or more leaves together, so as 

 to form a kind of cocoon or leafy case to shel- 

 ter them from the weather, and to screen them 

 from the prying eyes of birds. The full-grown 

 caterpillar, which attains to the length of about 

 two inches, is of a pale green colour, trans- 

 versely streaked with darker green, with a red 

 neck, a very large head roughened with minute 

 tubercles, slightly indented or furrowed above, 

 and of a dull red colour, with a large yellow 

 spot on each side of the mouth. Although 

 there may be, and often are, many of these 

 caterpillars on the same tree and branch, yet 

 they all live separately within their own cases. 

 One end of the leafy case is left open, and 

 from this the insect comes forth to feed. They 

 eat only, or mostly, in the night, and keep 

 themselves closely concealed by day. These 

 caterpillars are very cleanly in their habits, 

 and make no dirt in their habitations, but 

 throw it out with a sudden jerk, so that it 

 shall fall at a considerable distance. They 

 frequently transform to chrysalids within the 

 same leaves which have served them for a 

 habitation, but more often quit the trees and 

 construct in some secure place a cocoon of 

 leaves or fragments of stubble, the interior of 

 which is lined with a loose web of silk. They 

 remain in their cocoons without further change 

 throughout the winter, and are transformed to 

 butterflies in the following summer. The vis- 

 cid locust tree is sometimes almost completely 

 stripped of its leaves by these insects, or pre- 

 sents only here and there the brown and wither- 

 ed remains of foliage, which has served as a 

 temporary shelter to the caterpillars. For the 

 modes adopted to destroy these, see CATEB- 



PILLARS. 



LOLIUM. See RYE-GRASS. 



LONDON PRIDE. See SAXIFRAGE. 



LONDON ROCKET. See HEDGE-MUSTARIT. 



LONG-HORNED CATTLE. A breed of 

 neat cattle now nearly extinct, chiefly distin- 

 guished by the length of the horn, the thick- 

 ness and firm texture of the hide, the length 

 and closeness of the hair, the large size of the 

 hoof, and the coarse, leathery thickness of the 

 neck. See CATTLE. 



LOOPERS. See SPAN-WORMS. 



LOOSENESS. See DIARRHCEA, and DIS- 

 EASES OF CATTLE AND SHEEP. 



