THE GRASSHOPPER KIND. 



fast as these, if the sun be warm, and the soil in 

 which their eggs are deposited be dry. Happily 

 for us, the coldness of our climate, and the hu- 

 midity of our soil, are no way favourable to their 

 production ; and as they are but the animals of 

 a year, they visit us and perish. 



The Scripture, which was written in a country 

 where the locust made a distinguished feature in 

 the picture of nature, has given us several very 

 striking images of this animal's numbers and ra- 

 pacity. It compares an army, where the num- 

 bers are almost infinite, to a swarm of locusts : it 

 describes them as rising out of the earth, where 

 they are produced ; as pursuing a settled march 

 to destroy the fruits of the earth, and co-operat- 

 ing with divine indignation. 



When the locusts take the field, as we are 

 assured, they have a leader at their head, whose 

 flight they observe, and pay a strict attention to 

 all his motions. They appear at a distance like 

 a black cloud, which as it approaches gathers 

 upon the horizon, and almost hides the light of 

 the day. It often happens that the husbandman 

 sees this imminent calamity pass away without 

 doing him any mischief, and the whole swarm 

 proceed onward to settle upon the labours of 

 some less fortunate country. But wretched is the 

 district upon which they settle : they ravage the 

 meadow and the pasture ground, strip the trees 

 of their leaves, and the garden of its beauty ; the 

 visitation of a few minutes destroys the expecta- 

 tion of a year, and a famine but too frequently 

 ensues. In their native tropical climates they are 



