246 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



each otlier's premises. We cannot but admire the 

 remarkable instinct implanted in those grubs by their 

 Creator ; which guides them thus in lines diverging 

 farther and farther as they increase in size, so that 

 they are prevented from interfering with the comforts 

 of one another. 



The various instances of voracity which we have 

 thus described sink into insignificance, when com- 

 pared with the terrible devastation produced by the 

 larvae of the locust {Locusta migratoria. Leach), — 

 the scourge of oriental countries. *' A fire devoureth 

 before them," says the prophet Joel, " and behind 

 them a flame burneth : the land is as the garden of 

 Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wil- 

 derness ; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The 

 sound of their wings is as the sound of chariots, of 

 many horses running to battle ; on the tops of moun- 

 tains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire 

 that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in 

 battle array. Before their faces, the people shall be 

 much pained, all faces shall gather blackness. They 

 shall run like mighty men ; they shall climb the wall 

 like men of war; and they shall march every one in 

 his ways, and they shall not break their ranks ; nei- 

 ther shall one thrust another."* 



The intelligent traveller, Dr. Shaw, was an eye- 

 witness of their devastations in Barbary in 1724, 

 where they first appeared about the end of March, 

 their numbers increasing so much in the beginning 

 of April as literally to darken the sun ; but by the 

 middle of May they began to disappear, retiring 

 into the Mettijiah and other adjacent plains to de- 

 jiosit their eggs. " These were no sooner hatched 

 in June," he continues, " than each of the broods 

 collected itself into a compact body, of a furlong or 

 more in square ; and marching afterwards directly 



• Jcel ii. 2, &c. 



