The St. Johns herald., 1891-12-10
BUGS ON THE TRACK.
They Swarm in Q Quarry and Stop
 a Locomotive.
Thousands of the Insects Crushed Be- meath the Iron Wheels with Re- ports Resembling Ex-
 ploding Torpedoes.

Southeast of Brighton Corners on tho Lackawanna railroad are extensive limestone quarries which have been il operation for many years and have penetrated deeply into the rock, says a Syracuse correspondent of the New York Tribune. Through the cut thus made and into the quarries a branch track has been laid from the Laclza- wanna road for the hauling of the hewn stone. Night work being neces- sary a large part of the time, an are light has been placed high over the track of the darkest part of the cut. Several cars were loaded for shipment and left on the switch pending the observance of Memorial day. At night, in preparation for drawing the cars out, the electric light was put in and an engine with the necessary crew left the city for the quarries. What was the surprise of all hands upon reaching the scene of operations to find the track beneath the electric light completely throngcd with strange insects of great size, some of them lying perfectly still in punches and some of them playing a sort ofleap-frog game. They ycovcred a space of not less than sixty feet along the tracks, though toward either boundary of the occupied territory they grew fewer, as the rays of light began to grow dim mer. These pickcts, or slzirmishers, were one and all of most lively dispo- sition, and ran over the ground with that lightninglikc rapidity which char acterized the movements of the electric light bugs that made their appearance all over the country soon after the sys- tenn of electric lighting became of gen. eral adoption in cities.
 The locomotive continued on its way, and as the drivers rolled over the in sects the insects died with a cracking sound like the successive explosions Of toy torpedoes. But this was at the be- ginning of the swarm. As the iron monster plowed it's way along the bugs became more numerous and the crack ling grew to a monOtorous din, as though some firccracs1er storchousc had been touched off in a hundred places, until in the thick of the swarm the en- zine was brought to stop, the drivers refusing to catch on the now slippery rails, greased by the crushed and slaughtered bugs. An examination of the insects showed a resemblance to the electric-light bug. though they are somewhat larger than those bugs, the outer shell of the back being about the size and shape of half a shanghai-egg shell. It was this turtle-like armor with which the insects are equipped that made the cracking sound as the wheels passed over them. The shell is black and partakes of the nature of stone, having a slatey structure and being brittle. This property of the shell set the more thoughtful people to thinking and observing, and after a time search along the sides of the cut revealed innumerable small holes in the rock, which seemed to have been bored into it by some agency not that of man, and in them were traces of a peculiar ovula some matched and some apparent ly blightcd. An erudite recluse whose abode is in the neighborhood of the quarries had by this time appeared, for news of the strange occurrence had spread rapidly. His opinion was that the bugs that blocked the track were the issue of rare species of lithodome, a rock-boring mollusk-crossed with some kind of predatory insect. To secure the shipment of the freight it became necessary to let the loaded train from above in the quarry come down the grade of the cut. Gathering momentum all the time, its impetus when it came to tho obstruction carried it by the bugs.