LOCUSTS. 235 



check upon their progress by causing one insect to feed 

 upon another, and who has formed almost innumerable other 

 creatures (including birds, reptiles, and fishes) with instincts 

 which lead them to feed upon insects in every stage of their 

 development (fish devour the larvae of many insects which 

 inhabit the waters during the first stage of their existence) ; 

 but it occasionally happens, when some of these salutary 

 checks upon their increase are withdrawn, that they multiply 

 with such fearful rapidity as to produce a complete famine, 

 for they eat up everything before them. "Who has not heard of 

 the plagues of Locusts and the depredations of the White 

 Ants ? The swarms of Locusts in Africa will sometimes 

 cover many hundred square miles of surface, and in this 

 space not a vestige of any vegetation would remain after 



PIG. 21. LOCUST (Locusta Migratoria). 



their visit. The description of the prophet Joel is sublime '. 

 " The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and 

 behind them a desolate wilderness : yea, and nothing shall 

 escape them. . . . 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." 



But it is kindly ordained that these visitations shall only 

 occasionally take place, and even when they do, terrible as 

 is the infliction, a benefit in reality outweighing the injury 

 often succeeds ; for the land in these countries is often made 

 almost barren by the quantities of tangled roots and stubble 



