46 G EEPOET UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



the boundaries of Upper and Lower California prior to tbe American 

 occupation : 



Shortly before arriving at the village and river of Luxan, we observed to the south 

 a ragged cloud of a dark reddish-brown color. At first w© thought it was caused by 

 some great fire on the neighboring plains, but we soon found that it was a swarm of 

 locusts. They were flying northward, and with the aid of a light breeze they overtook 

 us at the rate of ten or fifteen miles an hour. The main body filled the air from a 

 height of twenty feet to that, as it appeared, of two or three thousand feet above the 

 ground. The sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running 

 to battle ; or rather, as I should say, like a strong breeze passing through a ship's rig- 

 ging. The sky, seen through the advanced guard, appeared like a mezzotint© engrav- 

 ing ; but the main body was impervious to sight. They were not, however, so thick 

 together but that they could escape a stick waved backward and forward. When 

 they alighted they were more numerous than the leaves in the field, and the surface be- 

 came reddish instead of green. The swarm having once alighted, the individuals flew 

 from side to side in all directions. Locusts are not an uncommon pest in this country. 

 Already during this season several smaller sw arms had come up from the south, where 

 apparently, as in all other parts of the world, they are bred in the deserts. The poor 

 cottagers in vain attempted, by lighting fires, by shouts, and by waving branches, to 

 arrest the attack. This species of locust closely resembles, and perhaps is identical 

 with, the Gryllus migratorius of Syria and Palestine. 



The pestilent ravagers named abound in the provinces of the La Plata 

 Eiver, and commit as much havoc as their congeners of Chili and Cali- 

 fornia. Lieut. Archibald McEae, attached to the coast survey of Cali- 

 fornia in 1856, was employed as assistant to Captain Ellis in the United 

 States astronomical expedition to Chili in 1850-'52, and performed a scien- 

 tific journey from Mendoza to Buenos Ayres, in December, 1852, in con- 

 nection with the expedition. He mentions having encountered, in that 

 month, immense swarms or " myriads" of locusts on the dry pampas 

 near the Desaquedero of San Luis. Of one species of locust he notes 

 the following singular fact in natural history : 



We passed on the road a swarm of large grasshoppers or locusts, apparently at war 

 with strange-looking black flies, about the size and shape of wasps, and having a red 

 spot on their tails. Their hostility to the locusts seemed to be wholly wanton, for I 

 could not observe that they did more than kill them. We had before seen myriads of 

 small locusts, generally feeding on young algarobas, but had not seen any as large as 

 these.— ( Fide Gillis Exped., 2d vol.^ p. 24.) 



Public advices from the Argentine States, of February, 1858, men- 

 tion that the provinces of Entre Eios and Corrientes were desolated by 

 swarms of langostas or locusts, which had caused great injury to the 

 cattle pastures and the commerce of the country. ^^^ 



In speaking of the pampas between Mendoza and Buenos Ayres, and 

 their Indian inhabitants, Padre Ovalle says (about 1G40), in his 7th 

 chapter of third book : 



They make bread of the cods of a tree, which we call in Spain algazoba (mesquite), 

 and, because that does not last long, they have invented a strange sort of bread, made 

 of locusts ; for the locusts used to be in such vast quantities in those great plains 

 called the pampas, that, as I traveled over them^ I often saw the sun intercepted and 

 the air darkened with flights of them. The Indians observe where they alight to rest, 

 i»2 A. S. Taylor's MS., received from the Smithsonian Institution. 



