196 



NATURAL HISTORY OF ARTHROPODS. 



air sacs, — all these traits conspire to make it the terrible eiig-iiie of destruction 

 which liistory shows it to have been under conditions favorable to its excessive multi- 

 plication. Insignificant individually, Init mighty collectively, locusts fall upon a 

 country like a plague or a blight. The farmer i)loughs and plants. He cultivates in 

 hope, watching' his growing grain, in graceful, wavedike motion wafted to and fro liy 

 the warm summer winds. The green liegins to golden; the harvest is at hand. Joy 

 lightens liis laVior as the fruit of past toil is about to be realized. The day breaks with 

 a smiling sun, that sends his rijieuing rays through laden orehai'ds imil jiromising fields. 

 Kine and stock, of every sort, are sleek A^ ith jilenty, and all the earth seems glad. 

 The day grows. Suddenly the sun's face is darkened, and clouds ol)scure the sky. 

 The joy of the morn gives way to ominous fear. The dav closes, and ravenous locust- 



Fig. 273. — Pai-Ii'jfi/his mirjra^orius {i;>ii tli(> right variety P. clni^ra.^CLni<;), old world locust. 



swarms have fallen u])on the land. Tlie morrow comes, and, ah! what a change it 

 brino-s! The fertile land of promise and plenty has become a desolate waste, and old 

 Sol, even at his brightest, shines sadly through an atmosphere alive with myriads of 

 glittering insects. 



"Falling upon a cornfield, the insects convert in a few hours the green and jirom- 

 ising acres into a desolate stretch of bare, spindling stalks and stubs. Covering each 

 hill bj' hundreds; scrambling from row to row like a lot of vounc:, famished pigs, let 

 out to their trough; they sweep clean a field quickei- than would a Avhole herd of 

 hungry steers. Imagine hundreds of square miles covered with such a ravenous horde, 

 and one can get some realization of the picture presented in manv parts of the country 

 west of the Mississippi during years of locust invasion. 



"Their flight may be likened to an immense snow-storm, extending from the 

 ground to a height at Avhich our visual organs perceive them only as minute, 



