LOCUSTID^E — LOCUSTS. Ill 



ing extent by young Locusts. About Kiew, as far as the eye 

 could reach, they lay piled up one upon another to the height 

 of two feet. Through the government of Ekatharinoslaw 

 and Cherson to the Black Sea, a distance of about 400 

 miles, they covered the ground so thickly that a horse could 

 not walk fast through them. The sight of such an immense 

 number, says an eye-witness, Mr. Jaeger, of the most destruc- 

 tive and rapacious insects, justly occasioned a melancholy 

 foreboding of famine and pestilence, in case they should in- 

 vade the cultivated and populous countries of Russia and 

 Poland. It was at this juncture, however, that the Emperor 

 Alexander sent his army of thirty thousand soldiers to de- 

 stroy them. These forming a line of several hundred miles, 

 and advancing toward the south, attacked them with 

 shovels, and collected them, as far as possible, in sacks and 

 burned them. This is the largest army of soldiers seat 

 against Locusts we have any record of ^ 



In 1824, Locusts made their appearance at the Glen- 

 Lynden Colony in South Africa, being the first time they 

 had been seen there since 1808. In 1825, they continued 

 to advance from the north; in 1826, the corn crops at 

 Glen-Lynden were totally destroyed by them; and in 1827, 

 1828, and 1829, they extended their ravages through the 

 whole of the northern and southern districts of the colony. 

 In 1830, they again disappeared.^ 



The following graphic description of the swarm that 

 visited Glen-Lynden in 1825 is from the pen of Mr. Pringle. 

 He says : " In returning to Glen-Lynden, we passed through 

 a flying swarm, which had exactly the appearance, as it ap- 

 proached, of a vast snow-cloud hanging on the slope of a 

 mountain from which the snow was falling in very large 

 flakes. When we got into the midst of them, the air all 

 around and above was darkened as by a thick cloud; and 

 We rushing sound of the wings of the millions of these in- 

 sects was as loud as the dash of a mill-wheel The 



column that we thus passed through was, as nearly as I 

 could calculate, about half a mile in breadth, and from two 

 to three miles in length."^ 



1 Jaeg. on Ins., p. 103. 



2 Pringle's S. Africa, p. 54. The Missionary Moffat has written 

 the history of the scourge of 1826. — Miss. Lab , p. 447-9. 



3 Ibid. 



