THE GRASSHOPPER, &c. 



479 



is luxuriant, and the ground rich and fertile : 

 there they deposit their eggs, particularly in 

 those cracks which are formed by the heat of 

 the sun. 



Such are the habits and nature of those little 

 vocal insects that swarm in our meadows, and 

 enliven the landscape. The larger kinds only 

 differ from them in size, in rapidity of flight, 

 and the powers of injuring mankind, by swarm- 

 ing upon the productions of the earth. The 

 quantity of grass which a few grasshoppers 

 that sport in the fields can destroy is trifling ; 

 but when a swarm of locusts, two or three 

 miles long, and several yards deep, settle upon 

 a field, the consequences are frightful. The 

 annals of every country are marked with the 

 devastation which such a multitude of insects 

 produces ; and though they seldom visit Eu- 

 rope in such dangerous swarms as formerly, 

 yet, in some of the southern kingdoms, they 

 are still formidable. Those which have, at 

 uncertain intervals, visited Europe, in our me- 

 mory, are supposed to have come from Africa, 

 and the animal is called the Great Brown Lo- 

 cust. It was seen in several parts of England 

 in the year 1748, and many dreadful conse- 

 quences were apprehended from its appear- 

 ance. This insect is about three inches long; 

 and has two horns or feelers, an inch in length. 

 The head and horns are of a brownish colour; 

 it is blue about the mouth, as also on the in- 

 side of the larger legs. The shield that covers 

 the back is greenish ; and the upper side of 

 the body brown, spotted with black, and the 

 under side purple. The upper wings are 

 brown, with small dusky spots, with one lar- 

 ger at the tips; the under wings are more 

 transparent, and of a light brown, tinctured 

 with green, but there is a dark cloud of spots 

 near the tips. This is that insect that has 

 threatened us so often with its visitations; 

 arid that is so truly terrible in the countries 

 where it k-bre'dS- There is no animal in the 

 creation that multiplies so 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 humidity of 

 our soil, are no way favourable to their pro- 

 duction ; and as they are but the animals of a 

 year, they visit us and perish. 



The Scripture, which was written in a coun- 

 try where the locust made a distinguished fea- 

 ture in the picture of nature, has given us se- 

 veral very striking images of this animal's 

 numbers and rapacity. It compares an army, 

 where the numbers 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-operate with divine indig- 

 nation. 



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 at- 

 tention to all his motions. They appear, at a 

 distance, like a black cloud, which, as it ap- 

 proaches, gathers upon the horizon, and almost 

 hides the light of the day. It often happens 

 that the husbandman sees this imminent cala- 

 mity pass away without doing him any mis- 

 chief; and the whole swarm proceeds onward, 

 to settle upon the labours of some less fortun- 

 ate 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 visi- 

 tation of a few minutes destroys the expecta- 

 tions of a year; and a famine but too fre- 

 quently ensues. In their native tropical cli- 

 mates they are not so dreadful as in the more 

 southern parts of Europe. There, though the 

 plain and the forest be stripped of their ver- 

 dure, the power of vegetation is so great, that 

 an interval of two or three days repairs the ca- 

 lamity : but our verdure is the livery of a sea- 

 son ; and we must wait till the ensuing spring 

 repairs the damage. Besides, in their long 

 flights to this part of the world, they are fa- 

 mished by the tediousness of their journey, 

 and are, therefore, more voracious wherever 

 they happen to settle. But it is not by what 

 they devour that they do so much damage as 

 by what they destroy. Their very bite is 

 thought to contaminate the plant, and to pre- 

 vent its vegetation. To use the expression of 

 the husbandman, they burn whatever they 

 touch, and leave the marks of their devastation 

 for two or three years ensuing. But if they 

 be noxious while living, they are still more so 

 when dead ; for wherever they fall, they infect 

 the air in such a manner, that the smell is un- 

 supportable. Orosius tells us, that, in the 

 year of the world 3800, there was an incredi- 

 ble number of locusts which infected Africa ; 

 and, after having eaten up every thing that 

 was green, they flew off, and were drowned 

 in the African sea: where they caused such a 

 stench, that the putrefying bodies of hundreds 

 of thousands of men could not equal it. 



In the year 1690, a cloud of locusts was 

 seen to enter Russia in three different places ; 

 and from thence to spread themselves over 

 Poland and Lithuania, in such astonishing 

 multitudes, that the air was darkened, and the 

 earth covered with their numbers. In some 

 places they were seen lying dead, heaped upon 

 each other four feet deep ; in others, they co- 

 vered the surface like a black cloth : the trees 

 bent beneath their weight ; and the damage 

 which the country sustained exceeded compu- 

 tation. In Barbary their numbers are formid- 

 able, and their visits are frequent. In the 

 year 1724, Dr Shaw was a witness, in that 

 country, of their devastations. Their first ap- 



