GRASSHOPPERS. 
165 
upper world, will be brown with these insects. 
It is then that birds and bears find the cold drifts 
luxuriant tables, from which they may feast. It 
is a well-known fact that bears share John the 
Baptist’s penchant for locusts and wild honey. 
As the latter is not a production of Colorado, a 
double portion — yes, doubled several times— of 
the former luxury is often provided them. For, 
be it known, those grasshoppers are not of the 
same family as the innocent little fellows in green 
jackets, that skip and chirp away their lives in 
eastern meadows. Quite otherwise. They are 
the brown-coated, insatiable eaters of ancient 
pedigree, known as long ago as — as the time of 
Adam, for aught I can tell — as the irrepressible, 
devouring locust. 
Where they are manufactured, to be coming 
over the range in July and August, no living 
being knows. But there they are, many seasons 
in such numbers as to perfectly illustrate those 
lines of an old hymn, which, speaking of evil 
spirits, says, 
“ They swarm the air, they darken heaven, 
And rule this lower world ! ” 
Standing upon some height, from which the 
whole earth seems spread out before one, and 
only its inconvenient shape and lack of focal 
distance in the eye prevents one from seeing the 
