no TRUE TALES OF THE INSECTS. 



and the weight of the mass 42,580 mihions of tons, each 

 locust weighing one-sixteenth of an ounce ; and the ship 

 of six thousand tons burden, he adds, must have made 

 seven milHon voyages to carry this great host, even if 

 packed together 1 1 i times more closely than they were 

 flying. Another, apparently a stronger, flight was seen 

 going in the same direction next day. Other testimony 

 goes to prove that such an estimate may be no 

 exaggeration. According to official accounts of locusts 

 in Cyprus, no fewer than 1600 million egg-cases were 

 collected and made away with in 1881, up to the end of 

 October ; and by the end of the season the weight of 

 the eggs collected and destroyed amounted to over 

 1 300 tons. 



From one part of the country to another the great 

 hordes sweep, in search of pastures new, and leave 

 ruin and devastation in their wake. The earth is 

 entirely deprived of her green mantle, no green thing 

 is left for beast or man. Famine is only a too probable 

 consequence, and pestilence may follow from the decom- 

 position of the bodies of the dead insects. The latter 

 result is said on some occasions to have occurred from 

 swarms falling into the sea, and being drowned, and 

 being afterwards thrown upon the shore by the waves. 

 Sometimes bodies of young locusts plunge into a stream 

 and are entrapped there, the whole swarm being 

 swamped in the river, there being no current to carry 



