134 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, 



not disturb the farmer's corn-fields — the locusts will afford them 

 a more palatable food, with much less danger from the guns of 

 the farmers' boys. 



Although the locust appears only once in seventeen years in 

 any one locality, and observes that periodicity with absolute 

 certainty, they do not appear in every part of the country at the 

 same time. There is a difference of nine years between East and 

 West Jersey. The writer of this remembers their appearance in 

 West Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, in 

 1817, 1834, and 1851, and has heard his ancestors speaking of 

 them as appearing in 1800 and 1783. Here, and in Eastern New 

 York and Western New England, they appeared in 1826, 1843, 

 and now. 



In parts of the western and southern country they appear in 

 equal or greater numbers, but at other times, and always after 

 the lapse of 17 years in each place. In Northern New England 

 and Canada they are not known. Neither is, exactly, the same 

 insect found in Europe or other parts of the world. The locusts 

 of the Bible, one of the plagues, was a much larger insect, and 

 more like our grasshopper in form, and, like the grasshopper, had 

 no subterranean existence, and of course, lived, and grew, and 

 fed upon the surface. A few years ago an immense grasshopper 

 appeared in vast numbers in Utah, the Paradise of the Mormons, 

 and some hoped that they would reappear in still greater num- 

 bers, and be a plague that would drive away and scatter this 

 ■miserable people. But we have no account of their return. 

 Probably they have their periodicity, and it may be many, many 

 years before they come again. 



The Cockchaffer, a black bug- (as people generally say), appears 

 in places about the last of May every four years. In walking or 

 riding out at night you are constantly annoyed by their flying 

 :against your face. I have seen them by thousands on the piazzas 

 in the country, where they have been wounded by flying against 

 ■the houses during the night. This is a dark brown beetle about 

 .three-:fourths of an inch long, lives but a few days, flies only at 

 night, covers itself up about an inch deep under the soft ground 

 in the day time, makes no noise except by the rapid motion of 

 the wings. In its grub or larva condition, it is a white, crooked 

 fworm, and in its third and fourth years about an inch long. 

 Country boys use it as bait for fresh-water fishing ; this year they 

 iwill prefer the locusts for that purpose. 



