630 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 17 4g. 



tend remaining there, but were thrown to the ground by the force of the wind, 

 and there laid their eggs ; a vast 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 1748, 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 the winter. But the subsequent June discovered 

 what those worms were; for then, as the corn sown in the 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 timely 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 com. 



At that time they differ little or nothing from common grashoppers; 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 colour still continued. 



Towards the end of June they cast off their outward covering; and then It 

 plainly appeared that they had wings, very like the wings of bees, but as yet 

 unripe and unexpanded; and then their body was very tender, and of a jellowish 

 green: then, in order to render themselves fit for flying, they gradually un- 

 folded their wings with their hinder feet, as flies do. And as soon as any of 

 them found themselves able to use their wings, they soared up, by flying round, 

 the others were provoked to join them: and thus their numbers increasing daily, 

 they took circular flights of 20 or 30 yards wide, till they were joined by the 

 rest, and, after miserably laying waste the native fields, they proceeded else- 

 where in large troops. 



Wherever those swarms happened to pitch, they spared no sort of vegetable ; 

 they eat up the young corn, and the very grass ; but nothing was more dismal to 

 behold than the lands in which they were hatched ; for they so greedily devoured 

 every green thing there, before they could fly, that they left the ground quite 

 bare. 



There was nothing to be feared in those places to which this plague did not 

 reach before the autumn ; for the locusts have not strength to fly to any con- 

 siderable distance, but in the months of July, August, and the beginning of 

 September; and even then, in changing their places of residence, they seem to 

 tend to warmer climates. 



Different methods of destruction are to be employed, according to the age and 



