Capture and Death of a large Alligator. 321 



We were flattering ourselves that the scourge would not come 

 near us, when the dark clouds were seen, far over the lake, ap- 

 proaching noiselessly, save in the rushing of wings, and soon the 

 sun was hid, and night seemed coming before her time. Mile 

 upon mile in length moved the deep broad column of this insect 

 army; and the cultivator looked and was silent, for the calamity 

 was too overwhelming for words. The sugarcane, the principal 

 crop of that country, gave promise of unusual productiveness 

 when the destroyer alighted. In a moment nothing was seen, 

 over the extended surface, but a black mass of animated matter, 

 heaving like a sea over the hopes of the planter. And when it 

 arose to renew its flight, in search of food for the hungry millions 

 who had had no share in the feast, it left behind, desolation and 

 ruin. Not a green thing stood where it had been, and the very 

 earth looked as though no redeeming fertility was left to it. Hu- 

 man exertions availed nothing against this enemy ; wherever he 

 came he swept like a consuming fire, and the ground appeared 

 scorched by his presence. Branches of trees were broken by the 

 accumulated weight of countless numbers ; and the cattle fled in 

 dismay before the rolling waves of this living ocean. The re- 

 wards of government and the devices of the husbandman, for his 

 own protection, were useless. Myriads of these insects were 

 taken and heaped together, till the air for miles was polluted, 

 without apparent diminution of their numbers. 



The typhon was the irresistible agent which at last terminated 

 their ravages, and drove them before it far into the Pacific. This 

 remedy prostrated wliat the locust had left, but still it was prayed 

 for as a mercy, and received with thanksgiving. 



Of the Philippine Islands, Luconia is the one best known ; but 

 the world of nature there is yet unexplored ; and the kw men of 

 science who have been permitted to carry their researches into 

 the interior, have either been too easily satisfied with the won- 

 ders they encountered at the outset, or have not been spared to 

 give the result of their labors. The one best fitted for the work, 

 who visited that country during my residence in it, was an Ital- 

 ian. He penetrated where the white man had not been seen 

 since the earliest days of the colony, when the followers of 

 Magellan made the circuit of the island, with the daring spirit of 

 investigation which distinguished that age of discovery. 



Vol. xxxviii, No. 2.— Jan.-March, 1840. 41 



