35 plest's NATURAL HISTOET. [Book XI. 



their places : according to some, it is at the setting 28 of 

 Areturus that the second litter is produced. That the mothers 

 die the moment they have brought forth, is a well-known fact, 

 for a little worm immediately grows about the throat, which 

 chokes them : at the same time, too, the males perish as well. 

 This insect, which thus dies through a cause apparently so 

 trifling, is able to kill a serpent by itself, when it pleases, by 

 seizing its jaws with its teeth. 29 Locusts are only produced in 

 champaign places, that are full of chinks and crannies. In 

 India, it is said that they attain the length of three 30 feet, and 

 that the people dry the legs and thighs, and use them for saws. 

 There is another mode, also, in which these creatures perish ; 

 the winds carry them off in vast swarms, upon which they fall 

 into the sea or standing waters, and not, as the ancients sup- 

 posed, because their wings have been drenched by the damp- 

 ness of the night. The same authors have also stated, that 

 they are unable to fly during the night, in consequence of the 

 cold, being ignorant of the fact, that they travel over lengthened 

 tracts of sea for many days together, a thing the more to be won- 

 dered at, as they have to endure hunger all the time as well, for 

 this it is which causes them to be thus seeking pastures in other 

 lands. This is looked upon as a plague 31 inflicted by the anger 

 of the gods ; for as they fly they appear to be larger than they 

 really are, while they make such a loud noise with their wings, 

 that they might be readily supposed to be winged creatures of 

 quite another species. Their numbers, too, are so vast, that they 

 quite darken the sun ; while the people below are anxiously 

 following them with the eye, to see if they are about to make 

 a descent, and so cover their lands. After all, they have 

 the requisite energies for their flight ; and, as though it had 

 been but a trifling matter to pass over the seas, they cross im- 

 mense tracts of country, and cover them in clouds which bode 

 destruction to the harvests. Scorching numerous objects by 

 their very contact, they eat away everything with their teeth, 

 the very doors of the houses even. 



26 nth May. 



29 Cuvier treats this story as purely imaginary. 



30 Cuvier says that some have been known nearly a foot long, but not 

 more. 



31 He alludes to tbe ravages committed by the swarms of the migratory 

 locust, Grillus migratorius of Linnaeus. 



