4 
HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. [Packard. 
their family relatives in this country. Rumors are } T early 
heard of immense flocks of grasshoppers (Fig. 1 ct, Calopte- 
nus spretus) devastating immense tracts of soil in the farthest 
west and the Pacific slopes of the Rocky Mountains. In New 
England and the Canadas our most common grasshopper 
(Fig. 1 5, Caloptenus femur-rubrum) has at times emulated 
the bad fame of the eastern locust. In Williamson’s “ His¬ 
tory of Maine,” it is stated that “ in 1749 and 1754 the 
common red-legged grasshoppers 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 
occasioned among the peo¬ 
ple that days of fasting and 
prayer were appointed, on 
account of the threatened 
calamity.” Dr. Harris thus 
quotes from President 
Dwight’s Travels : “ 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 v*hile they are at work, these insects destroy in a few 
hours, and with the same voracity they devour the loose par¬ 
ticles which the saw leaves upon the surface of pine boards, 
and which, when separated, are termed sawdust. The ap¬ 
pearance of a board fence from which the particles had been 
eaten in this manner, and which I saw, was novel and sin¬ 
gular ; fand 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 at¬ 
mosphere, and take extensive flights, of which neither the 
4 
Fig. 1. 
Destructive Grasshoppers. 
