108 LOCUSTIDuE — LOCUSTS. 



were finally, however, swept into ditches, the opposite sides 

 of which were provided with cloths tightly stretched, and 

 crushed. "^ 



When the provincial governors of Spain are informed in 

 the spring that Locusts have been seen, they collect the 

 soldiers and peasants, divide them into companies and sur- 

 round the district. Every man is furnished with a long 

 broom, with which he strikes the ground, and thus drives 

 the young Locusts toward a common center, where a vast 

 excavation, with a quantity of brushwood, is prepared for 

 their reception, and where the flame destroys them. Three 

 thousand men were thus employed, in 1780, for three weeks, 

 at Zamora; and it was reckoned that the quantity collected 

 exceeded 10,000 bushels."^ In 1783, 400 bushels more were 

 collected and destroyed in the same way.^ 



Mr. Barrow informs us that in South Africa, in 1784 and 

 1797, two thousand square miles were literally covered by 

 Locusts, which, being carried into the sea by a northwest 

 wind, formed, for fifty miles along shore, a bank three or 

 four feet high ; and when the wind was in the opposite point, 

 the horrible odor which they exhaled was perceptible a 

 hundred and fifty miles oflf.* 



The immense column of Locusts which ravaged all the 

 Mahratta territory, and was thought to have come from 

 Arabia, extended, Mr. Kirby's friend told him, five hundred 

 miles, and was so dense as thoroughly to hide the sun, and 

 prevent any object from casting a shadow. This horde was 

 not composed of the migratory Locust, but of a red species, 

 which imparted a sanguine color to the trees on which they 

 settled.^ 



Mr. Forbes describes a flight of Locusts which he saw 

 soon after his arrival at Baroche in 1779. It was more than 

 a mile in length, and half as much in breadth, and appeared, 

 as the sun was in the meridian, like a black cloud at a dis- 

 tance. As it approached, its density obscured the solar 

 rays, causing a gloom like that of an eclipse, over the gar- 



1 Cuv. An. King. — Ins., ii. 212. 



2 Gent. Maff., Ixii. 543. 



3 Jf,id., liii. 526, Pt. I. 

 ^ Trnv., etc., 257. 



5 K. and S. Introd., i. 219. 



