They move about by day, frequent dry places, and are very fond of sitting on the grass in the sun. Certain species, which inhabit the warm regions of the south, move their legs with scarcely any noise; it being only perceptible to a very fine ear.

The species of genus.Sa^T/ sometimes reach extraordinary dimensions. Thus, in 1863, there was found in Syria, after a shower of ordinary locusts, a specimen of the Saj^a which was three inches and a quarter long. It was presented to the Museum of Natural History of Paris, by M. I.,. Delair. r

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Locusts are very abundant in many parts of the world. In northern countries, where they multiply less rapidly, their ravages are less disastrous, though still very considerable. But in the southern portions of the globe they are a perfect pest—the eighth plague of Egypt. Certain species multiply in such a prodigious manner, that they lay waste vast spaces of land, and in a very short time reduce whole countries to the very last state of misery. These insects inflate themselves with air, and undertake journeys during which they travel

Fig. 308.—Locust (Acridium [Œdipoda] migratorium).

more than six leagues a day, laying waste all vegetation on their road.

The most destructive species is the Migratory Locust (Acridium [or Œdipoda] migratorium, Fig. 308), which is very common in Africa, India, and throughout the whole of the East. Isolated specimens of this insect are to be found in the meadows round about Paris, especially towards the end of the summer, and, very rarely, in England. This species is greenish, with transparent elytra of a dirty grey, whitish wings, and pink legs. A second species, the Italian locust, also does a great deal of damage in the south. All the species undergo five moults, which take six weeks each. The last takes place at the end of the hot weather, towards the autumn.

It is especially in warm climates that they become such fearful pests to agriculture. Wherever they alight, they change the most fertile country into an arid desert. They are seen coming in innumerable bands, which, from afar, have the appearance of stormy

Fig. 308. — Locust {Acridiuni (CEiiiJ>ocia) migraiuriuvi).

clouds, even hiding the sun. As far and as wide as the eye can reach the sky is black, and the soil is inundated with them. The noise of these millions of wings may be compared to the sound of a cataract. When this fearful army alights upon the ground, the branches of the trees break, and in a few hours, and over an extent of many leagues, all vegetation has disappeared, the wheat is gnawed to its very roots, the trees are stripped of their leaves. Everything has been destroyed, gnawed down, and devoured. When nothing more is left, the terrible host rises, as if in obedience to some given signal, and takes its departure, leaving behind it despair and famine. It goes to look for fresh food — seeking whom, or rather in this case, what it may devour! (Plate VIII.) During the year succeeding that in which a country has been devastated by showers of locusts, damage from these insects is the less to be feared; for it happens often that after having ravaged everything, they die of hunger before the laying season begins. But their death becomes the cause of a greater evil. Their innumerable carcases, lying in heaps and heated by the sun, are not long in entering into a state of putrefaction; epidemic disease, caused by the poisonous gases emanating from them, soon breaks out, and deci-mates the populations. These locusts are bred in the deserts of Arabia and Tartary, and the east winds carry them into Africa and Europe. Ships in the eastern parts of the Mediterranean are sometimes covered with them at a great distance from the land.

It is related in the Bible, in the tenth chapter of Exodus, that Jehovah commanded Moses to stretch forth his hand to make locusts (Arbeth) come over the whole land of Egypt as the eighth plague, destined to intimidate Pharaoh, who had rebelled against Him. These insects arrived, brought by an east wind, and covered the surface of the country to such a degree that the air was darkened by them.* They ate up all the herbs of the field and all the fruit of the trees which the hail (the seventh plague) had left. A west wind swept

"And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither afrer them shall be such. For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt." — ExOD. x. 13 — 15.

VIII.—Cloud of Locusts in Algeria.

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them away again, when Pharaoh had at last promised to allow the children of Israel to depart.

Pliny relates that in many places in Greece a law obliged the inhabitants to wage war against the locusts three times a year; that is to say, in their three states of egg, larva, and adult. In the Isle of Lemnos the citizens had to pay as taxes so many measures of locusts. In the year 170 before our era they devastated the environs of Capua. In the year of our Lord 181 they committed great ravages in the north of Italy and in Gaul. In 1690 locusts arrived in Poland and Lithuania by three different ways, and, as it were, in three different bodies. "They were to be found in certain places where they had died," writes the Abbe Ussaris, an eye-witness, " lying on one another in heaps of four feet in height. Those which were alive, perched upon the trees, bending their branches to the ground, so great was their number. The people thought that they had Hebrew letters on their wings. A rabbi professed to be able to read on them words which signified God's wrath. The rains killed these insects: they infected the air; and the cattle, which ate them in the grass, died immediately." In 1709 locusts stopped the army of Charles XIL, King oi Sweden, as it was retreating from Bessarabia, on its defeat at Pultowa. The king thought that he was assailed by a hailstorm, when a host of these insects beat violently against his army as it was passing through a defile, so that men and horses were blinded by this living hail, falling from a cloud which hid the sun. The arrival of the locusts had been announced by a whistling sound like that which precedes a tempest; and the noise of their flight quite over-powered the noise made by the Black Sea. All the country round about was soon laid waste on their route. During the same year a great part of Europe was invaded by these pests, the newspapers of the day being full of accounts relating to this public calamity. In 1755 Portugal was attacked by them. This was the year of the earthquake of Lisbon, and all sorts of plagues seemed at this time to rage in that unfortunate country.

In 17 So, in Transylvania, their ravages assumed such gigantic proportions that it was found necessary to call in the assistance of the army. Regiments of soldiers gathered them together and enclosed them in sacks. Fifteen hundred persons were employed in crushing, burying, and burning them; but, in spite of all this, their number did not seem to diminish; but a cold wind, which fortunately sprang up, caused them to disappear. In the following spring the plague broke out again, and every one turned out to fight against it

The locusts were swept with great brooms into ditches, in which they were then burnt; not, however, before they had ruined the whole country. Locusts showed themselves at the same time in the empire of Morocco, where they caused a fearful famine. The poor were to be seen wandering on all sides, digging up the roots of vegetables, and eagerly devouring camels' dung, in hopes of finding in it a few undigested grains of barley.

Barrcw and Levaillant, in their travels through Central Africa, speak of similar calamities having happened many times between 1784 and 1797. They add that the surface of the rivers was then hidden by the bodies of the locusts, which covered the whole country. According to Jackson, in 1739 they covered the whole surface of the ground from Tangier to Mogador. All the region near to the Sahara was ravaged, whilst on the other side of the river El Kos there was not one of these insects. When the wind blew they were driven into the sea, and their carcases occasioned a plague which laid Barbary waste. India and China often suffer from these destmctive insects. In 1735 clouds of locusts hid from the Chinese both the sun and moon. Not only the standing crops, but also the corn in the barns and the clothes in the houses were devoured.

In the south of France locusts multiply sometimes so prodigiously that in a very short time many barrels may be filled with their eggs. They have caused, at different periods, immense damage. It was chiefly in the years 1613, 1805, 1820, 1822, 1824, 1825, 1832, and 1834, that their visits to the south of France were most formidable.

Me'zeray relates that in the month of January, 16 13, in the reign of Louis XIII., locusts invaded the country around Aries. In seven or eight hours the wheat and crops were devoured to the roots over an extent of country of 15,000 acres. They then crossed over the Rhine, and visited Tarascon and Beaucaire, where they ate the vegetables and lucerne. They then shifted their quarters to Aramon, to Monfrin, to Valabregues, &c., where they were fortunately destroyed in great part by the starlings and other insect-eating birds, which flocked in innumerable numbers to this game.

The consuls of Aries and of Marseilles caused the eggs to be collected. Aries spent, for this object, 25,000 francs, and Marseilles 20,000 francs. Three thousand quintals of eggs were interred or thrown into the Rhone. If we count 1,750,000 eggs per quintal, that will give us a total of 5,250,000,000 of locusts destroyed in the egg, which otherwise would have very soon renewed the ravages of which the

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country had so lately been the victim. In 1822 were spent again, in Provence, 2,227 francs for the same object. In 1825 were spent 6,200 francs. A reward of 50 centimes was given for every kilogramme of eggs, and half the sum for every kilogramme of insects. The eggs collected were burnt, or else crushed under heavy rollers. The gathering was entrusted to women and children. The operation consisted in dragging along the ground great sheets, the corners of which were held up. The locusts came and settled on these, and were caught by rolling the sheet up.

In the territory of Saintes-Maries, situated not far from Aigues- Mortes, on the Mediterranean coast, 1,518 wheat sacks were filled with dead locusts, amounting in weight to 68,861 kilogrammes; and at Aries 165 sacks, or 6,600 kilogrammes. The rewards given amounted to 5,542 francs; but, notwithstanding all this, the following year the locusts caused still greater damage.

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