The Locusts: their Function 



" Wherefore, from this testimony, it is 

 very sure that, by the grace of God, Grass- 

 hoppers were given to man for his nourish- 

 ment." 



Without going so far as the Arab natural- 

 ist, which would presuppose a power of 

 digestion not bestowed on every man, I feel 

 entitled to say that the Locust is a gift of 

 God to a multitude of birds, as witness the 

 long array of gizzards which I consulted. 



Many others, notably the reptile, hold 

 him in esteem. I have found him in the belly 

 of the Rassado, that terror of the small girls 

 of Provence, I mean the Eyed Lizard, who 

 loves rocky shelters turned into a furnace by 

 a torrid sun. And I have often caught the 

 little Grey Lizard of the walls in the act 

 of carrying off, in his tapering snout, the 

 spolia opima of some long-awaited Acridian. 



Even fish revel in him, when good fortune 

 brings him to them. The Locust's leap has 

 no definite goal. A projectile discharged 

 blindly, the insect comes down wherever the 

 unpremeditated release of its springs shoots 

 it. If the place where it falls happen to be 

 the water, a fish is there at once to gobble 

 up the dripping victim. It is sometimes a 

 363 



