308 THE INSECT WORLD. 



fig-trees, and even the olive-trees, in spite of the bitterness of 

 their foliage. At Relizane and at L'Habra they attacked the 

 cotton-fields. The road, 80 kilometres long, which connects Mos- 

 taganem with Mascara, was covered to the whole of its extent. 



In the province of Constantine the locusts appeared almost 

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

 La Calle. At Batna, at Setif, at Constantine, at Gruelma, at Bona, 

 at Philippeville, at Djidjelly, 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 pos- 

 sible 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, summoning, admonishing, and excommu- 

 nicating 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 dissi- 

 pate, 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. 



