170 
ORTHOPTERA. 
miscalled grasshoppers, and have suffered more or less from 
their - depredations. 
Amon<r the various accounts which I have seen, the follow- 
ing, extracted from the Travels of the late President Dwight,* 
seems to be the most full and circumstantial. “ Bennington 
(Vermont), and its neighborhood, have for some time past 
been infested by grasshoppers (locusts) of a kind with which 
I had before been wholly unacquainted. At least, their his- 
tory, as given by respectable persons, is in a great measure 
novel. They appear at different periods, in different years ; 
but the time of their continuance seems to be the same. 
This year (1798) they came four weeks earlier than in 1797, 
and disappeared four weeks sooner. As I had no opportunity 
of examining them, I cannot describe their form or their size. 
Their favorite food is clover and maize. Of the latter they 
devour the part which is called the silk, the immediate means 
of fecundating the ear, and thus prevent the kernel from 
coming to perfection. But their voracity extends to almost 
every vegetable ; even to the tobacco plant and the burdock. 
Nor are they confined to vegetables alone. The garments of 
laborers, hung up in the field while they are at work, these 
insects destroy in a few hours ; and with the same voracity 
they devour the loose particles which the saw leaves upon 
the surface of pine boards, and which, when separated, arc 
termed sawdust. The appearance of a board fence, from 
which the particles had been eaten in this manner, and which 
I saw, was novel and singular ; and seemed the result, not 
of the operations of the plane, but of attrition. At times, 
particularly a little before their disappearance, they collect 
in clouds, rise high in the atmosphere, and take extensive 
flights, of which neither the cause nor the direction has 
hitherto been discovered. I was authentically informed that 
some persons, employed in raising the steeple of the church 
in Williamstown, were, while standing near the vane, cov- 
ered by them, and saw, at the same time, vast swarms of 
* Travels in New England and New York, by Timothy Dwight, Vol. II. p. «3. 
