80 THE MICKOSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



they change the most fertile country into a desert. They 

 are seen coming in innumerable bands, which, from afar, 

 have the appearance of stormy clouds, even hiding the 

 sun. As far and as wide as the eye can reach, the sky is 

 black, and the soil is inundated with them. The noise 

 of these millions of wings may be compared to the sound 

 of a cataract. When this fearful army alights upon the 

 earth, the branches of the trees break ; and in a few hours, 

 and over an extent of many leagues, all vegetation has 

 disappeared ; the wheat is gnawed to its very roots ; the 

 trees are stripped of their leaves; everything has been 

 destroyed, gnawed down, and devoured. When nothing 

 more is left, the terrible host rises, as if in obedience to 

 some given signal, and takes its departure, leaving 

 behind it despair and famine. It goes to look for fresh 

 food seeking whom, or rather, in this case, what it may 

 devour." * 



In one year they covered a vast surface of Africa; 

 when the wind blew they were driven into the sea, and 

 their carcases occasioned a plague which laid a whole 

 country waste. 



One kind sometimes comes near to our own shore. 

 In France rewards were offered for their larvae, and a 

 curious calculation has been made as to the number 

 collected in one season, when a hundred and fifty tons of 

 locusts were thrown into the Khone from only three 

 departments of France, whose numbers were estimated to 

 have been 5250 millions that is, nearly four times the 

 population of the whole earth. 



We, in England, are sorrowfully connected with the 

 Arabs of the Soudan, where the good General Gordon lost 

 his devoted life. There the Soudanese endeavour to 

 frighten the locusts by savage yells. In the Middle 



* " The Insect World," by Louis Figuier. 



