S86 INSECTS. 



Red Tower attempted to stop their irruption into Transylvania by 

 firing at them*; and, indeed, where the balls and shot swept 

 through the swarm, they gave way and divided ; but, having rilled 

 up their ranks in a moment, they proceeded on their journey. In 

 the month of September, some troops of them were thrown to the 

 ground by great rains and other inclemency of the weather, and 

 thoroughly soaked with wet, they crept along in quest of holes in 

 the earth, dung, and straw ; where, being sheltered from the rains, 

 they laid a vast number of eggs, which stuck together by a viscid 

 juice, and were longer and smaller than what is commonly called 

 an ant's egg +, very like grains of oats. The females having laid 

 their eggs, die, like the silk-worm ; and we Transylvanians found 

 by experience, that the swarm which entered our fields by the Red 

 Tower, did not seem to intend remaining there, but were thrown to 

 the ground by the force of the wind, and there laid their eggs : a 

 V2st number of which being turned up and crushed by the plough, 

 in the beginning of the ensuing spring, yielded a yellowish juice. 

 In the spring of J 748, certain little blackish worms were seen lying 

 in the fields and among the bushes, sticking together, and collected 

 in clusters, not unlike the hillocks of moles or ants. As nobody 

 knew what they were, so there was little or no notice taken of them, 

 and in May they were covered by the shooting of the corn sown in 

 winter; but the subsequent June discovered what those worms 

 were; for then, as the corn sown in spring was pretty high, these 

 creatures began to spread over the fields, and become destructive 

 to the vegetables by their numbers. Then at length the country 

 people, who had slighted the warning given them, began to repent 

 of their negligence ; for as these insects were now dispersed all over 

 the fields, they could not be extirpated without injuring the corn. 

 At that time they differed little or nothing from our common grass- 

 hopper, having their head, sides, and back, of a dark colour, with 

 a yellow belly, and the rest of a reddish hue. About the middle 

 of June, according as they were hatched, sooner or later, they were 

 generally a finger's length, or somewhat longer, but their shape and 



* In the eastern parts of the world it is often found necessary for the go- 

 vernors of particular provinces to command a certain number of the military 

 to take the field against armies of locusts, with a train of artillery. 



f Which is not the real egg, but the chrysalis of the ant, enveloped in its 

 eival silken case. 



