52 LOCUSTS. 



fact of these migratory hordes of the genus Acridium, which devastate 

 respectively part of North America, part of South America, and also 

 the South-West of Asia and the North of Africa, being so exceedingly 

 similar to each other in appearance, that although they are specifically 

 distinguished as americamim, jJ^f'ftnense, and percgrinum, it is at least 

 open to doubt whether they are not all of one species. 



Under the name of Acridmm peregrinum, this large Locust of India 

 and Africa occasionally visits our shores, but there does not seem to 

 be any reason to apprehend that either this kind or any other of the 

 Locust family (as distinguished from the small form, known in this 

 country as Grasshoppers) will make good an establishment in this 

 island. 



From collation of information, and also of quotations given in the 

 U.S.A. Department of Agriculture reports, and also Entomological 

 records of this country, it appears that the first trustworthy return of 

 noticeable Locust migration reaching us was when the migratory 

 Locust, Pachytylus migratorius, after multiplying in Southern Eussia 

 in 1844, passed westward and northward in the following years ; and 

 in 1846 numerous flocks of Locusts were recorded as observed in the 

 South and North of England, in Scotland about Aberdeen, and in the 

 Shetlands. Since that date Locusts of various species have been not 

 unfrequently recorded scientifically, as present in various parts of the 

 country, usually as single specimens, or just a few, and now and then 

 (or at least once) in numbers, described as an erratic flock. But so far, 

 as I find these Locusts were all fully-developed specimens ; I cannot 

 find any notice of appearance of the insects being in any case followed 

 by observation of them in their early conditions. 



The Locust is one of the insects which does not alter in general 

 shape from the time that it hatches out of the egg to its maturity, save 

 that at first it is totally wingless. The little infant Locust (as I had 

 once an opportunity of seeing myself) is hearty and brisk as can be, 

 just after coming out of the egg; and as soon as food supply is 

 exhausted in localities where a great hatch has taken place, the young 

 destroyers move on devouring (in the words of the U.S.A. official 

 report before me) " all the grass, grain, and garden-truck in their 

 path." In due time, after successive moults, as the creature grows to 

 full development it acquires wings, the upper pair narrow and some- 

 what parchment-like, the lower transparent, and of such great size as 

 to require many folds to pack them away beneath the upper pair ; and 

 if the pasturage is not sufficient, and it is one of the gregarious and 

 migratory species, the Locust and its millions of brethren set forth on 

 their wanderings in the vast armies in which its presence has been 

 recorded as one of the scourges of the earth for thousands of years. 

 The eggs are laid in the ground, and the average time of develop- 



