THE RED-LEGGED LOCUSTS. 
169 
legged species (^Acrydiam femur-ruhrum)^ P* 1^4,) 
intermingled occasionally with some larger kinds. These, 
in certain seasons, almost entirely consume the grass of these 
marshes, from whence they then take their course to the up¬ 
lands, devouring, m their way, grass, corn, and vegetables, 
till checked by the early frosts, or by the close of the nat¬ 
ural term of their existence. When a scanty crop of hay 
has been gathered from the grounds which these puny pests 
have ravaged, it becomes so tainted with the putrescent 
bodies of the dead locusts contained in it, that it is rejected 
by horses and cattle. In this country locusts are not dis¬ 
tinguished from grasshoppers, and are generally, though in¬ 
correctly, comprehended under the same name, or under that 
of flying gi'asshoppers. They are, however, if we make 
allowance for their inferior size, quite as voracious and in¬ 
jurious to vegetation during the young or larva and pupa 
states, when they are not pro\nded with wings, as they are 
when fully grown. In our newspapers I have sometimes 
seen accounts of the devastations of grasshoppers, which 
could only be applicable to some of our locusts. 
At various times -they have appeared in great abundance 
in different parts of New England. It is stated that, in 
Maine, “during dry seasons, they often appear in great mul¬ 
titudes, and are the greedy destroyers of the half-parched 
herbage.” “In 1749 and 1754 they were very numerous 
and voracious ; no vegetables escaped these greedy troops ; 
they even devoured the potato tops ; and in 1743 and 1756 
they covered the whole country and threatened to devour 
everything green. Indeed, so great was the alarm they oc¬ 
casioned among the people, that days of fasting and prayer 
were appointed, * on account of the threatened calamity. 
The southern and western parts of New Hampshire, the 
northern and eastern parts of ^Massachusetts, and the south¬ 
ern part of Vermont, have been overrun by swarms of these 
* See Williamson’s History of Maine, Vol. 1. pp. 102, 103, and compare with 
p. 172 of the same work. 
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