168 NATURAL HISTORY. [CH. XIL 



CHAPTER XII. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE LOCUST, ETC. 



The Idea entertained by the Ancients, hy the Arabs — The supposed 

 Meaning of the Letters on their Wings, (SfC, — Their Food — Rav- 

 ages — The Description given by Joel — The Beneficial Results 

 from the Locusts, used as Food — Niebuhr^s Account — Their Rav- 

 ages in Barbary, in Transylvania, in Spain — Size of the largest 

 Species — Ravages in Mahratta, and in Africa — The Wart-eat- 

 ing Locust — Prickly Grasshopper — On the Metamorphoses of thia 

 kind of hisects. 



The history of the locust is indeed a series of the 

 greatest calamities which human nature has suffered. 

 Kingdoms have been depopulated. In all ages and 

 times, these insects have so deeply impressed the 



imagination, that all people have looked on them 

 vi^ith superstitious horror. Their devastations have 

 entered into the history of nations, and their effi- 

 gies have been perpetuated in coins, like those of 

 other conquerors of the earth. 



We are the army of the great God, and we lay 

 ninety-and-nine eggs ; were the hundredth put forth, 

 the world would be ours — such is the speech the 



