98 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



be made a lie through the ignorance of man ! high 

 time that correct notions of the beings that live and 

 move about us were more universally disseminated! 

 This very error in the translation, originating from 

 ignorance of entomology, has often caused intense 

 anxiety and alarm among the people of different parts 

 of this country, at the appearance of an innumerable 

 swarm of Cicadas. They have actually imagined 

 themselves afflicted with the Plague of Egypt, and 

 apprehended famine and pestilence. To avoid this 

 mistake, let us change the word " Locust," wherever 

 it occurs in the Bible, into the word " Grasshopper" — 

 an Insect of which we shall presently speak at length, 

 and in whose natural history will be found many 

 additional reasons why it must be the Insect desig- 

 nated in Scripture, and no other. 



Our Cicada, commonly called Locust, is a harmless, 

 lovely creature, and has been celebrated for its song 

 from the most ancient times. " To the ancient Greeks 

 no sound was more agreeable titan the chirping of 

 Cicadas, not only because it seemed to give life to the 

 solitude of the shady grove and academic walks, but 

 because it always conveyed to their minds the idea of 

 a perfectly happy being." So delighted wore they 

 with its song, that they kept it in cages, and called 

 it "the Nightingale of the Nymphs" — " the Sweet 

 Prophet of the Summer" — "the Love of the Muses," 



