‘ORTHOPTERA. t7 
their passage through the air, a thick and heavy cloud; wherever 
they alight all signs of vegetation quickly disappear, and a desert is 
speedily created. Their death frequently forms another scourge,-as 
the air becomes poisoned by the frightful mass of their decomposing 
bodies. 
M. Miot, in his excellent translation of Hecodtye has given it as 
his opinion, that the heaps of bodies of winged Serpents which that 
historian states he saw in Egypt, were nothing more than masses of 
this species of Acrydium. In this I perfectly agree with him. 
These Insects are eaten in various parts of Africa, where the in- 
habitants collect them for their own use and for commerce. They 
take away their elytra and wings and preserve them in brine. - 
A considerable part of Europe'is frequently devastated by the 
A. migratorius; Gryllus migratorius, L.; Rees.; Insect. I, 
Gryll., xxiv. Length two inches and a half; ida green, with 
obscure spots; elytra light brown spotted with blacks a low crest 
on the thorax. The eggs are enveloped in a frothy’and glutinous 
flesh-coloured matter, forming a cocoon, which the Insect is said 
to glue to some plant. Common in Poland. 
The south of Europe, Barbary, Egypt, &c., are frequently 
devastated in like manner by other species, some of which are 
rather larger—G. xgyptius, tartaricus, L.,—which differ but 
little from the Gryllus lineolus of Fabricius, found in the south 
of France—Herbst., Archiv. Insect., LIV, 2,—a species proper 
to the same countries, and which is the one that is prepared 
and eaten in Barbary, as above described. The natives of Sene- 
gal dry another, the body of which is yellow, spotted with blacks 
they then, as I. have been told by M. Savigny, reduce it to 
powder, and employ it as flour. It is figured by. Shaw and De- 
~ non. These two species and several others have a conical pro- 
jection of the presternum, and compose my genus AcrypiuM, 
properly so called. Of those which do not present this charac- 
ter but Have likewise filiform antennz, some are furnished with 
wings and elytra in both sexes.» They belong to the genus which 
I have named Ciprropa. 
Of this number are the two following Acrydia of authors, 
Gryllus stridulus, L.; Rees., Ib., XXI, 1, 23... Deep brown or 
- blackish; thorax raised into a carina; wings red, with the ex- 
tremity black. 
Gryllus czrulescens, L.; Roes., Ib. XXI1, 4.. Wings blue, some- 
what tinged with green, and marked with a black band(1). 
: 2 
(1) Add G. biguttulus, Panz., lb., XXXIL, 6;—G. grossus, Ib. 7;—G. pedestris, 
Vout. 1V.—C 
