128 LOCUSTIDiE — LOCUSTS. 



The Chinese believe the same, and affirm that this leader 

 is the largest individual of the whole swarm. ^ 



Benjamin Bullifant, in his observations on the Natural 

 History of New England, says: "The Locusts have a kind 

 of regimental discipline, and as it were commanders, which 

 show greater and more splendid wings than the common 

 ones, and arise first when pursued by fowls, or the feet of a 

 traveler, as I have often seriously remarked."" 



The truth, however, is found in the Bible. They have no 

 king.^ 



The Saharawans, or Arabs of the desert, "whose hands 

 are against every man,"^ and who rejoice in the evil that 

 befalls other nations, when they behold the clouds of Locusts 

 proceeding toward the north are filled with the greatest 

 gladness, anticipating a general mortality, which they call 

 El-khere, the good, or the benediction ; for, when Barbary 

 is thus laid waste, they emerge from their arid recesses in 

 the desert and pitch their tents in the desolated plains.^ 



Pausanias tells us, that in the temple of Parthenon there 

 was a brazen statue of Apollo, by the hand of Phidias, which 

 was called Parnopius, out of gratitude for that god having 

 once banished from that country the Locusts, which greatly 

 injured the land. The same author asserts that he himself 

 has known the Locusts to have been thrice destroyed by 

 Apollo in the Mountain Lipylus, once exterminating them 

 by a violent wind; at another time by vehement heat; and 

 the third time by unexpected cold.^ 



At a time when there were great swarms of Locusts in 

 China, as we learn from Navarette, the Emperor went out 

 into his gardens, and taking up some of these insects in his 

 hands, thus spoke to them : The people maintain themselves 

 on wheat, rice, etc., you come to devour and destroy it, 

 without leaving anything behind ; it were better you should 

 devour my bowels than the food of my subjects. Having 

 concluded his speech, the monarch was about to put them in 

 a fair way of "devouring his bo\vels" by swallowing them, 

 when some that stood by telling him they were venomous, 



1 Chinese Repository. 

 '^ Phil. Trans, for \ 698. 

 3 Frov. XXX. 27. 

 ^ Genes, xvi. 12. 



5 .Jackson's Travels in Morocco, p. 105-6. 



6 Hist, of Greece, b. i. c. 24. 



