INSECT INVADERS. 



4> 



Many observers assert that a swarm of locusts make a great 

 noise. It is thus described by the poet Southey : 



" Onward they came, a dark continuous cloud 

 Of congregated myriads numberless, 

 The rushing of whose wings was as the sound 

 Of a broad river headlong in its course ; 

 Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar 

 Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm, 

 Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks. " 



The prophet Joel describes the noise as like that of chari- 

 ots, or a strong people set in battle array. I must confess- 

 that I heard no noise at all. It is true that the swarm 

 through which I rode was neither very thick nor very ex- 

 tensive, and my horse was trotting. But even taking this 

 into consideration, it is obvious that the above descriptions 

 must be taken cum grano salis, and that allowance must be 

 made for poetic and oriental imagination. The ancients 

 were prone to exaggerate, as the Arabic account of the 

 locust will show : Three feet long, with a head like that of 

 a horse, having the eyes of the elephant, the neck of the bull, 

 the horns of the stag, the chest of the lion, the belly of the 

 scorpion, the wings of the eagle, the tail of the serpent, the 

 thighs of the camel, and the legs of the ostrich, but so 

 powerfully spined as to be used as saws by the women ! 



The locusts which compose the present flight probably 

 belong to the species Acrydium peregrinum. They are 

 smaller than those I have seen in the plains and vary in 

 colour from a brownish-yellow to bright red, like that of a 

 boiled lobster. On the wings, of which, of course, there are 

 two pairs, are a number of brown markings. The swarm 

 of locusts which has just passed over is rather a straggling 

 one. At first the locusts were few and far between, the next 

 day they came in greater numbers, but it was not until the 

 third day that the main swarm passed. This was an almost 

 solid phalanx of, I should say, roughly one mile in length 

 and half as broad. At their approach the members of the 

 advance guard, which were feeding in the neighbourhood. 



