NATURAL HISTORY. 493 



" On the following day I had the pleasure of beholding the 

 first flight of locusts that I had seen since my arrival in the 

 colony. We were standing in the middle of a plain of unlim- 

 ited length, and about five miles across, when I observed them 

 advancing. On they came like a snow-storm, flying slow and 

 steady, about a hundred yards from the ground. I stood look- 

 ing at them until the air 'was darkened with their masses, 

 while the plain on which we stood became densely covered with 

 them. Far as my eye could reach, east, west, north, and south, 

 they stretched in one unbroken cloud ; and more than an hour 

 elapsed before their devastating legions had s^wept by. . . . 



" Locusts afford fattening and wholesome food to man, birds, 

 and all sorts of beasts ; cows and horses, lions, jackals, hyaenas, 

 antelopes, elephants, &c. devour them. We met a party of 

 Batlapis carrying heavy burdens of them on their backs. Our 

 hungry dogs made a fine feast on them. The cold frosty night 

 had rendered them unable to take wing until the sun should 

 restore their powers. As it was difficult to obtain sufficient 

 food for my dogs, I and Isaac took a large blanket, which we 

 spread under a bush, whose branches were bent to the ground 

 with the mass of locusts which covered it, and having shaken 

 the branches, in an instant I had more locusts than I could 

 carry on my back ; these we roasted for ourselves and cur 

 dogs." 



Our common grasshoppers belong to this order, but require 

 no description. 



The Cockroach (Blatta orientalis), erroneously called by 

 housewives, the " Black-beetle" (it not being a beetle at all, and 

 its colour being a reddish brown), belongs to the family Blattida). 

 It was originally brought from abroad, arid has completely 

 domesticated itself, just as the brown rat has done, so that few 

 houses are free from it. 



THE MOLE-CRICKET. 



The curious insect called the MOLE-CRICKET is not un- 

 common in England. It inhabits sandy banks, digging deej 

 holes, and forming chambers, in which the eggs are laid 



