LOCUSTID^ — LOCUSTS. 101 



* Locustidae— Locusts. 



^loufet says : " That Locusts should be generated of the 

 carkasse of a mule or asse (as Plutarch reports in the life of 

 Cleonides) by putrefaction, I cannot with philosophers de- 

 termine; first, because it was permitted to the Jewes to feed 

 on them ; secondly, because no man ever yet was an eye- 

 witness of such a putrid and ignoble generation of Lo- 

 custs."^ 



The first record of the ravages of the Locusts, which we 

 find in history, is the account in the Book of Exodus of the 

 visitation to the land of Egypt. "And the Locusts went 

 up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of 



Egypt — very grievous were they For they covered 



the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened ; 

 and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of 

 the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not 

 any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, 

 through all the land of Egypt. "^ 



It is to the Bible, too, we go to find the best account, for 

 correctness and sublimity, of the appearance and ravages of 

 these terrific insects. It is thus given by the prophet Joel : 

 "A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and 

 of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mount- 

 ains : a great people and a strong ; there hath not been ever 

 the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years 

 of many generations. A fire devoureth before them ; and 

 behind them a flame burneth; the land is as the garden of 

 Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness ; 

 yea, and nothing shall escape them. Like the noise of 

 chariots^ on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the 

 noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a 

 strong people set in battle array. Before their faces the 

 people shall be much pained : all faces shall gather blackness. 

 They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall 

 like men of war, and they shall march every one on his ways, 



1 Theatr. Ins., p. 120. Topsel's Hist, of Beasts, p. 984. 



'^ Exod , chap. x. 



3 Of the symbolical Locusts in the Apocalypse it is said— "And the 

 sounds of their wings was as the sound of chariots, of many horses 

 running to battle." — ix. 9. 



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