258 OUR INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES 



" did not seem one penny the worse/' and cheer- 

 fully continued in their wickedness. The follow- 

 ing quaint description of such a ceremony is to 

 be found chronicled by a pious monk named 

 Alvarez, who during his wanderings in Ethiopia 

 encountered a mighty army of Locusts. Writes 

 the worthy monk: "Thus chanting psalms, we 

 went into a country where the corn was, which 

 having reached, I made them [the Portuguese 

 and natives] 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, summoning, 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 refusual 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." 



The Arabs, whose crops are so frequently 

 devastated by the Locusts, have many curious 

 legends and ideas concerning them. They have 

 a saying that these insects were formed out of 

 the clay left over from the making of man, and 

 that with the total extinction of the Locust, the 

 human race will quickly disappear, the Locust 

 originally having been destined to serve as food 

 for man. Another legend tells how Mahomet 

 one day found a Locust upon whose wings was 



