LOCUSTS. 105 



than five entire epistles are occupied with the injuries 

 which we sustain from insects, while two are devoted to 

 the benefits they yield us. The former is almost an ap- 

 palling array ; the injuries done to us in our field-crops, 

 in our gardens, in our orchards, in our woods and forests, 

 not to mention those which attack our living stock or our 

 persons, by these most minute of creatures, are indeed 

 weU calculated to impress on us the truth of that Oriental 

 proverb, which tells us that the smallest enemy is not to 

 be despised. 



The locust has been celebrated in aU ages as one of the 

 scourges of God ; and the Holy Scriptures bear testimony 

 how often in ancient times, and with what effect, it was 

 let loose upon the guilty nations. To outward appearance 

 it is a mere grasshopper, in nowise more formidable than 

 one of those crinking merry-voiced denizens of our 

 summer-fields that children chase and capture ; yet with 

 what terror is it beheld by the inhabitants of the East ! 

 The speech which Mohammed attributed to a locust 

 graphically represents the popular estimate of its powers : 

 — " "We are the army of the great God ; we produce 

 ninety-nine eggs; if the hundred were complete we 

 should consume the whole earth and all that is in it." 



It is only a short time since the public papers were 

 occupied with articles expressing the most gloomy fears 

 for the noble oak and pine forests of Germany. It was 

 stated that millions of fine trees had already fallen under 

 the insidious attacks of a beetle, a species of extreme 

 minuteness, which lays its eggs in the bark, whence the 



