INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 223 



climb up upon the houses ; they shall enter in at the 

 windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them, 

 the heavens shall tremble : the sun and the moon shall 

 be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining ! " 

 The usual way in which they are destroyed is also no- 

 ticed by the prophet. " I will remove far off from you 

 the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren 

 and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his 

 hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall 

 come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he 

 hath done great things a !" 



I think, after a serious consideration of all these well 

 attested facts, when locusts contend with the two-legged 

 destroyers of the human race for proud pre-eminence in 

 mischief, you will find it difficult to determine to which 

 the palm should be decreed; and you will admire the pro- 

 priety with which, in the above and other passages of 

 Holy Writ, they are selected as symbols of the great 

 ravagers of the earth of our own species. 



In many of the above instances these devastators ap- 

 pear to have crossed the seas, but Hasselquist asserts that 

 they are not formed for such extensive flights. " The 

 grasshopper or locust," says he, " is not formed for tra- 

 velling over the sea, it cannot fly far, but must alight 

 as soon as it rises ; for one that came on board us a hun- 

 dred certainly were drowned. We observe in the months 

 of May and June a number of these insects coming from 

 the south, and directing their course to the northern 

 shore ; they darken the sky like a thick cloud ; but 

 scarcely have they quitted the shore, when they, who a 

 moment before ravaged and ruined the country, cover 



* Joelii. 2-10. 20. 



