THE MIGRATORY LOCUST. 



483 



then carried away on the backs of oxen to the place where the process of drying takes 

 place. During the transit the living cargo makes a great buzzing inside the sacks. 

 Herodotus, in Book IV. c. 172, mentions the fact that Locusts are used for food : " When 

 they have caught Locusts, they dry them in the sun, reduce them to powder, and, 

 sprinkling them in milk, drink them. " The flavour of the Locust is rather variable, and 

 is regulated by the food on which the insect has lately lived. 



WAXKINU-STICK INSECT.- Jiacteria troj.'hinus. COCKliOACH. lilatta orientals 



MIGRATORY LOCUST. l.ucusta migratoria. 



In Southern Africa, the herds of larval Locusts are little less to be dreaded than tlieir 

 mature and winged hosts. They pass over the ground in a broad torrent, several inches 

 in depth, and are popularly known by the title of " voet-gangers," i.e. foot-goers. At 

 night they crawl up trees and hang like clusters of grapes from the boughs. Nothing 

 seems to impede their march. Wide and deep trenches are overpassed as if the ground 

 were quite level ; should they come to a stream or canal, the vast hosts which form the 

 van march boldly into it and with their dead bodies form a bridge over which their 

 companions can march ; and should fires be lighted across their course, the flames are 

 quickly stifled by the dense masses of insects that fling themselves unhesitatingly into 

 the burning heap. 



In such vast numbers do the Locusts assemble, that after a severe storm, which is 

 always fatal to these insects, a continuous bank of dead Locusts has been formed, three or 

 four feet in height, nearly fifty miles in length, and exhaling a most pestilential odour 

 from the decomposing bodies. 



There are so many and so familiar accounts of these Locust armies that little need be 

 said upon the subject. The following passage, however, taken from Cumming's well- 

 known work on Southern Africa, will give the reader a just and vivid idea of the 

 multitudinous hosts that pass through the air : 



" On the following day I had the pleasure of beholding the first flight of Locusts tha^ 

 I had seen since my arrival in the colony. We were standing in the middle of a plain ot 

 unlimited length, and about five miles across, when I observed them advancing. On they 



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