ORTHOPTERA. 197 



darting scintillations, leaving the imagination to picture them indefinite distances be- 

 yond 



" In alighting, they circle in myriads about you, beating against everything animate 

 or inanimate ; 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 the face of the unavoidable destruction everywhere going 

 on, one is bewildered and awed at the collective 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 crackling and rasping — the general effect of the 

 two sounds is very much the same. Southey, in his Thalaba, most graphically pic- 

 tures this noise produced by the flight and approach of locusts : 



' Onward they come, a dark, continuous 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 Joel's account of the appearance 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 gener- 

 ations. A fire devoureth be- ' 

 fore them ; and behind them 

 a flame burneth ; the land is 

 as the garden of Eden before 

 them, and behind them a des- 

 olate wilderness' vea and ^^cis. 274 and 275. — Caioptoms spre^ijs, Kooky Mountain locust, male 

 ' •' ' and female. 



nothing shall escape them. 



The appearance of them is as the appearance 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 ways, and they shall not break their ranks. . . . They 

 shall run to and fro in the city ; they shall run upon the wall ; they shall climb up 

 upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.' 



" The female, when about to lay her eggs, forces a hole in the ground by means of 

 the two pairs of horny valves which open and shut at the tip of her abdomen, and 

 which, from their peculiar structure, are admirably fitted for the purpose. With the 

 valves closed she pushes the tips into the gi-ound, and by a s'eries of muscular efforts 

 and the continued opening and shutting of the valves she drills a hole, until in a few 

 minutes (the time varying with the nature of the soil), nearly the whole abdomen is 



