310 THE CAUSES WHICH 



cradle of them; to Palestine^ Syria^ Caramania, Natolia^ Bithynia, 

 Constantinople^ and Poland ; they never appear to turn to the east 

 or to the west. In Northern India they are stated to migrate east, 

 and in Southern Africa southward.^ In 1650 a cloud of locusts 

 was seen to enter Russia in three different places, and they 

 afterwards spread themselves over Poland and Lithuania. Prom 

 Africa they frequently invade Spain, Italy, and Austria, and 

 trend northward. Both locusts and butterflies where they increase 

 inordinately become the food of primitive races ; and at Missouri 

 certain cultivated gentlemen have revived this dainty dish of 

 ancient kings and prophets, in an annual feast on spikes of the 

 American locust, Calopterus spretus, with wild honey from the 

 Hocky Mountains. As to occult science and astronomical in- 

 fluences on the revolution of our swift little planet, it would 

 be hard to state what might not be learnt from locust invasions. 

 If we direct our attention to Europe in 591 of our present era, 

 we find they invaded Italy; and in 1478 they were a pest in the 

 Venetian territory; in 1542 they invaded Silesia; in 1556, 

 Maddaloni; in 1613, Marseilles; in 1650, Russia, spreading to 

 Poland; in 1693, Thrace, penetrating to Germany; in 1713, 

 Silesia. In the years intervening between 1747 and 1750 their 

 phalanxes again swept over Central Europe, reaching our own 

 shores ; and lastly, in 1780, they appeared in Transylvania, 

 having previously multiplied at Morocco and ravaged at the 

 Cape. Prom these years of wonder we extract the dark numbers 

 64, 14, 57, 37, 43, 20, 34, 33— differences whose evident fluc- 

 tuation might try even an expert algebraist in concocting a 

 series. Yet the more recent ravages of the North American 

 locust, which furnish us with the periods 39, 7, 3, 2, 3, 2, if they 

 continue as they have set in, with recurring twos and threes, 

 may not be so summarily dealt with. In 1818 they first 

 appeared in Red River, and devastated until 1820; and subse- 

 quently the years 3 857, 1864, 1867, 1869, 1872, 1874, mark 

 successive inroads of these grasshoppers, causing an agricultural 

 gloom doubly heightened by the ravages of the canker-worms, 

 disclosed in the following springs. Did they accommodate 

 themselves to such numbers, one is tempted to ask, on the 



* Kirby and Spence, p. 131. 



