THE AMERICAN jLOCUST. 297 



Very shortly, after attaining their perfect state, 

 these insects always spread over the country for 

 many miles round. They are excessively voracious, 

 and do infinite damage, in their periodical swarm- 

 ings, to both orchard and forest trees ; and were it 

 not for the number and variety of their enemies, and 

 the naturally short duration of their lives, the inha- 

 bitants would often suffer from them all the horrors 

 of famine. It seems to have been of these insects 

 that Mr. Hughes says such vast swarms were bred, 

 or came into the island of Barbadoes, in the year 

 1734-5, that they destroyed almost every green 

 and tender plant. So great was the destruction that 

 they caused, especially among the potatoe vines, on 

 whose roots the poor people chiefly subsisted, and 

 such the scarcity of food occasioned by them, par- 

 ticularly in the parish of St. Philip, that a collection 

 was made for these sufferers through the rest of the 

 island*. 



Domestic fowls are fond of them ; and even some 

 of the American squirrels become fat with them at 

 the times when they are very abundant. The In- 

 dians also pluck off their wings, and boil the bodies 

 for food. — It is said that they may be kept from the 

 trees by suspending on the branches pieces of tow 

 impregnated with a mixture of brimstone and train 

 oil. 



* Natural History of Barbadoes. 



