Dec. 1, 1S70.] 



HAJIDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



271 



THE LOCUST-TREE. 



IT is a remarkable fact, and the mere statement 

 affords a sad commentary upon the general 

 imperfectness of human knowledge, that mankind 

 should remain in doubt as to the true reading of 

 Matthew iii. 4, and Mark i. G ; where both 

 evangelists describe St. John as supported on 

 " locusts and wild honey." 



The scriptural statement is quite clear that the 

 insect Acridium, or locust, is intended — it is atcpiSeg 

 dicpiSag in the original ; but tradition has obsti- 

 nately substituted the fruit of the locust-tree, 

 Ceratonia siliqua, or St. John's bread, as the sub- 

 stance really intended. 



This error appears to have originated with Eastern 

 monks, who not being fully informed as to the 

 real usage of Syrian and Arab, have interpreted 

 the words of Scripture by the light of their own 

 tastes and habits. 



Our word locust is from the Latin locus ustus, 

 a burned place, i.e. " wasted ; " and it is so used 

 in the Vulgate. It clearly refers to those migratory 

 insects of the grasshopper or cricket kind, which 

 naturalists classes Locustidce, Gryllidce, (Edipoda, 

 and the Acridium. However unsuited to our 

 notions may be such food, it is different in the 

 East ; and in Leviticus xi. 22, the locust is 

 especially pointed out as fit for food. The words 

 used are as follows : — 



I. HIHX, arbeh ; it implies "sudden invasion," 

 and is rendered in the Septuagint by fipovxov, from 

 /3ptr?w, "I gnaw." 



II. DJjbo, salani ; which implies " to swallow up, 

 to destroy." Septuagint, olttuk^v, from arrw, "I 

 spring or jump." 



III. Vj~in, chargol, implying "terror, horror;" 

 Septuagint, otyioiiaxnv (Hebrew, Zft&anb), from o(pis, 

 snake, and i*ax>h a combat ; i.e. " hostile to the 

 snake." 



IV. 3Jn, clagab ; implying "food." Septuagint, 

 aicpida, from a-Kpivoj : 1. unarranged, disorderly, 

 lasting, unceasing; or 2. indiscriminate, im- 

 mense ; the migratory locust, from its unlimited 

 numbers. 



The Hebrew words, thus explained by the 

 seventy elders, convey just the ideas which we 

 associate with different varieties of locust. Thus 

 sanctioned by the Levitical law, wc find the 

 practice continued to the present time, as 

 described by many travellers. 



Hasselquist, a Swedish naturalist, who died in 

 1752, has fully described the custom. They are 

 ground or pounded, mixed with flour and water, 

 made into cakes, salted, smoked, eaten boiled or 

 roasted, stewed or fried, cooked with butter as a 

 dainty fricassee. With these statements before us, 

 we need not doubt that the Baptist did eat locusts ; 



although monkish narrators may have thought it 

 more proper for him to have eaten the long sweet 

 pods of the so-called St. John's bread. 



Locusts and wild honey ! What an idyllic pic- 

 ture. Not very dainty: fare, according to European 

 notions, but it may yet form a popular diner a la 

 [Sy~\riuse, where animal food is a secondary con- 

 sideration. Then the hirsute man, roughly clad in 

 skins, and muttering to himself, witli the pressure 

 of thoughts, that but occasionally found vent 

 before a sympathetic crowd. 



The Evangelists state that he lived in the desert, 

 supporting himself on what he found; we may 

 allow him some choice of cookery out of the 

 variety described above ; he was not bound to eat 

 his locusts raw. 



I mention this, because Mr. Lord, an eminent 

 naturalist and traveller, apparently inclines to the 

 idea that St. John did eat the carob-bean. See 

 Leisure Hour for August, p. 553, where he describes 

 "the long scimitar-like pods, hanging in great 

 bunches from the pendent branches . . . like . . . 

 a goodly crop of scarlet-runner beans growing upon 

 a tree." The true locust-tree is Ceratonia siliqua, 

 it belongs to. the Leguminosce or Bean tribe. \ It is 

 called the Algarob-bean, i.e. Al-kharoub, the carob, 

 much used for feeding horses and fattening cattle, 

 a la Thorley. The English locust-tree is a spurious 

 acacia, known as Robinia pseud-acacia, introduced 

 from North America. 



25, Paternoster Roto. A. Hall. 



ON THE HYBERNATION OF HYDRO- 

 CHARIS. 



DR. LINDLEY, in his Physiological Aphorisms, 

 says that in some plants, a bud, when sepa- 

 rated from its stem, will grow and form a new plant, 

 if placed in circumstances favourable to the pre- 

 servation of its vital powers. But this property, 

 he adds, " seems confined to plants having a firm, 

 woody, perennial stem." There are plants, how- 

 ever, far from possessing a ligneous structure, witb 

 regard to which the aphorism holds good, and buds 

 detached from them, in the course of nature, retain 

 their vitality for months. The process is, in fact, 

 designed by Nature for the preservation of the 

 species. 



The Frog-bit, Hydrocharis morsus-rance, which 

 covers some ponds in this neighbourhood during 

 the summer months, rarely flowers, and therefore 

 does hot propagate itself readily by the method 

 common to phenogamous plants, — that is, by seeds ; 

 but it must have some means of doing so, for we 

 see, summer after summer, the same ponds covered 

 with the plant, although probably for several pre- 

 ceding seasons we have sought in vain for a single 

 flower. Before inquiring into those means, let me 



