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LETTER VII. 



INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



INDIRECT INJURIES — Continued. 



To look at a locust in a cabinet of insects, you would not, at first sight, 

 deem it capable of being the source of so much evil to mankind as stands 

 on record against it. " This is but a small creature," you would say, 

 " and the mischief which it causes cannot be far beyond the proportion of 

 its bulk. The locusts so celebrated in history must surely be of the 

 Indian kind mentioned by Pliny, which were three feet in length, with 

 legs so strong that the women used them as saws. I see, indeed, some 

 resemblance to the horse's head, but where are the eyes of the elephant, 

 the neck of the bull, the horns of the stag, the chest of the lion, the belly 

 of the scopion, the wings of the eagle, the thighs of the camel, the legs 

 of the ostrich, and the tail of the serpent, all of which the Arabians men- 

 tion as attributes of this widely-dreaded insect destroyer' ; but of which 

 in the insect before me I discern little or no likeness ? " Yet, although 

 this animal be not very tremendous for its size, nor very terrific in its 

 appearance, it is the very same whose ravages have been the theme of 

 naturalists and historians in all ages, and upon a close examination you 

 will find it to be peculiarly fitted and furnished for the execution of its 

 office. It is armed with two pairs of very strong jaws, the upper termi- 

 nating in short and the lower in long teeth, by which it can both lacerate 

 and grind its food — its stomach is of extraordinary capacity and powers — 

 its hind legs enable it to leap to a considerable distance, and its ample vans 

 are calculated to catch the wind as sails, and so to carry it sometimes over 

 the sea ; and although a single individual can effect but little evil, yet 

 when the entire surface of a country is covered by them, and every one 

 makes bare the spot on which it stands, the mischief produced may be as 

 infinite as their numbers. So well do the Arabians know their power, that 

 they make a locust say to Mahomet, " We are the army of the Great God ; 

 we produce ninety-nine eggs ; if the hundred were completed, we should 

 consume the whole earth and all that is in it."^ 



Since it is possible you may not have paid particular attention to the 

 accounts given by various authors both ancient and modern, of the almost 

 incredible injury done to the human race by these creatures, I shall now 

 lay before you some of the most striking particulars of their devastations 

 that I have been able to collect. 



The earliest plague of this kind which has been recorded, appears also 

 to have been the most direful in its immediate effects that ever was inflict- 

 ed upon any nation. I am speaking, as you may well suppose, of the 



' Bochart, Hierozoic. ?. ii. 1. iv. c. 5. 475. * Bocharl, ubi supr. c. 6, 485. 



