214 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



An idea of the vast numbers that will sometimes descend to the ground 

 may be formed by the following occurrence related to us by an intelligent 

 and reliable eye-witness, Col. H. McAllister, of Colorado Springs, Colo.: 

 In 1875, early in August, a swarm suddenly came down at that place. The 

 insectscame with the wind, and alighted in a rain. Th e ground wasliterally 

 covered two and three inches deep, and glittered "as anew dollar" with 

 the active multitude. In rising, the next day, by a common impulse, 

 their wings would get entangled and they would drop to the ground 

 again in a matted mass. " In alighting, they circle in myriads about 

 you, beating against everything animate or inanimate j driving into 

 open doors and windows; heaping about your feet and around your 

 buildings; their jaws constantly at work biting and testing all things 

 in seeking what they can devour. In the midst of the incessant buzz 

 and noise which such a flight produces, in face of the unavoidable de- 

 struction everywhere going on, one is bewildered and awed at the col- 

 lective power of the ravaging host, which calls to mind so forcibly the 

 plagues of Egypt. 



" The noise their myriad jaws make when engaged in their work of 

 destruction can be realized by any one who has 'fought' a prairie fire, 

 or heard the flames passing along before a brisk wind, the low crack- 

 ling and rasping — the general effect of the two sounds is very much the 

 same. Southey, in his Thalaba,^^ most graphically j)ictures this noise 

 produced by the flight and approach of locusts : 



Onward they come, a dark, continuons cloud 

 Of congregated myriads numberless, 

 The rushing of whose wings was as the sound 

 Of a broad river, headlong in its course 

 Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar 

 Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm, 

 Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks ! 



"Nothing, however, can surpass the prophet JoePs account of the ap- 

 pearance and ravages of these insects. Omitting the figurative parts, 

 it is accurate and graphic beyond measure: 



" ' A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick 

 darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains ; a great people 

 and a strong ; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any 

 more after it, even to the years of many generations. A firedevoureth 

 before them ; and behind them a flame burneth ; the land is as the gar- 

 den of Eden before them, and betiud them a desolate wilderness ; yea, 

 and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of tbem is as the ap- 

 pearance of horses ; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise 

 of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a 

 flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle 

 array. Before their face the people shall be much pained ; all faces 

 shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men ; they shall 

 climb the wall like men of war ; and they shall march every one on his 



291., 169. 



