LOCUSTS— COCKROACHES. 



589 



multitudes, and at very irregular periods ; but how it comes that they are multiplied 

 to such an excess in particular years, and not in others, has never yet been ascertained, 

 and perhaps never will be. They are armed with two pairs of strong mandibles ; their 

 stomach is of extraordinary capacity and power ; they make prodigious leaps by means 

 of their muscular and long hind legs ; and their wings even carry them far across the 

 sea. On viewing a single locust, one can hardly conceive how they can cause such 

 devastations, but we cease to wonder on hearing of their numbers. 



From 1778 to 1780 the whole empire of Morocco was so laid waste by swarms 

 of these insects, that a dreadful famine ensued. Mr. Barrow, in his travels, states 

 that in the southern parts of Africa the whole surface of the ground might literally be 

 said to be covered with them for an area of nearly 2,000 square miles. When driven 

 into the sea by a north-west wind, they formed upon the shore, for fifty miles, a bank 

 three or four feet high ; and when the wind was south east, the stench was such as to 

 be smelt at the distance of 150 miles. Major Moore observed at Poonah an army of 

 locusts, which devastated the whole country of the Mahrattas, and most likely came 

 from Arabia. Their columns extended in a width of 500 miles, and were so dense as 

 to darken the light of the sun. It was a r^d species (not the common Gryllus migra- 

 torius), whose bloody color added to the terror of their appearance. 



In Central Africa, Anderson met with vast numbers of the larv98 of the locust 

 commonly called by the Boers Voet-gangers," or pedestrians. In some places they 

 might be seen packed in layers several inches in thickness, and myriads were crushed 

 and maimed by the wagon and cattle. Towards nightfall they crawled on the bushes 

 and shrubs, many of which, owing to their weight and numbers, were either bowed 

 down or broken short off. They were of a reddish color, with dark markings ; and 

 as they hung thus suspended, they looked like clusters of rich fruit. These larvae 

 are justly dreaded by the colonists, as nothing seems capable of staying their progress. 

 Even rivers form no barrier to their march, as the drowning multitudes afford the 

 survivors a temporary bridge ; endeavors to diminish their numbers would appear like 

 attempting to drain the ocean by a pump. On traveling on, next morning, the locust 

 itself was encountered, and in such masses as literally to darken the air. The wagon, 

 or any other equally conspicuous object, could not be distinguished at the distance of 

 one hundred paces. The noise of their wings was not unlike that caused by a gale 

 of wind whistling through the shrouds of a ship at anchor. During their flight num- 

 bers were constantly alighting — an action which has not inaptly been compared to the 

 falling of large snow-flakes. It is, however, not until the approach of night that the 

 locusts encamp. Woe to the spot they select as a resting-place ! The sun sets on a 

 landscape green with all the luxuriance of tropical vegetation; it rises in the morning 

 over a region naked as the waste of the Sahara. 



We are not wholly unacquainted with Cockroaches. The tropical plague of the 

 cockroaches has been introduced into the temperate zone; but, fortunately, the giant 

 of the family, the Blatta gigantea, a native of many of the warmer parts of Asia, 

 Africa, and South America, is a stranger to our land; and the following truthful 

 description of this disgusting insect at home gives us every reason to be thankful for 

 its absence: — " They plunder and erode all kinds of victuals, dressed and undressed, 

 and damage all sorts of clothes, especially such as are touched with powder, pomatum, 

 and similar substances ; everything made of leather ; books, paper, and various other 



