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ORTHOPTERA. 309 



the olive-trees, in spite of the bitterness of their foHage. At 

 Relizane and at UHabra they attacked the cotton-fields. The road, 

 80 kilometres long, which connects Mostaganem with Mascara, was 

 covered to the whole of its extent. 



In the province of Constantine the locust appeared almost 

 simultaneously, from the Sahara to the sea, and from Bougia to La 

 Calle. At Batna, at Setif, at Constantine, at Guelma, at Bona, at 

 Philippeville, at Djidjelli, the inhabitants struggled with energy 

 against this invasion, but neither fire nor any obstacles opposed to the 

 advance of this winged army were able to stop their ravages. The 

 French Government, to alleviate as much as possible the ruin which 

 was thus brought upon the colony, opened a public subscription at 

 the end of the year 1866. 



The negroes of Soudan endeavour to frighten the locusts in 

 their flight by savage yells. In Hungary they employed for the same 

 object the noise of cannon. In the middle ages, for the want of 

 cannon, they exorcised the locusts. A traveller of the sixteenth 

 century, the monk Alvarez, relates that he also employed exorcisms 

 against an immense host of these destructive insects which he met 

 with in Ethiopia. When he perceived them, he made the Portuguese 

 and the natives form in procession, and ordered them to chant 

 psalms. "Thus chanting," says he, ''we went into a country where 

 the corn was, which having reached, I made them catch a good 

 many of these locusts, to whom I delivered an adjuration, which I 

 carried with me in writing, by me composed the preceding night, sum- 

 moning, admonishing, and excommunicating them. Then I charged 

 them in three hours' time to depart to the sea, or else to go to the 

 land of the Moors, leaving the land of the Christians ; on their 

 refusal of which, I adjured and convoked all the birds of the air. 

 animals, and tempests, to dissipate, destroy, and devour them ; and 

 for this admonition I had a certain quantity of these locusts seized, 

 and pronouncing these words in their presence, that they might not 

 be ignorant of them, I let them go, so that they might tell the rest." 

 If one reflects that on their arrival in the land of the Moors, these 

 same locusts were perhaps received by prayers which had for their 

 object to send them back to the land of the Christians, they must 

 have been very much embarrassed by such contradictory adjurations. 



The Arabs have also an infallible means of ridding themselves of 

 the locusts. Here is what General Daumas tells us on the subject. 

 According to Ben-Omar, the Prophet read one day, on the wings of 

 a locust, written in Hebrew characters : " We are the troops of the 

 Most High God; we each one lay ninety-nine eggs. If we were 



