BRITISH SPECIES OF THE LOCUST. 107 



" 21. Yet these may ye eat, of every flying', creeping- thing which 

 goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal 

 upon the earth. 



" 22. Even these of them may ye eat. The locust after his kind, 

 and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and 

 the grasshopper after his kind. 



" 23. But all other flying things which have four feet shall be an 

 abomination unto you." 



To tlie insect emphatically distinguished as the 

 locust, and whose ravages have been among the 

 most awful visitations of other lands, I find no allu- 

 sion throughout the Dramatic Works of Shakspeare. 

 In fact, the word "locust" occurs but once, and then 

 is introduced in such a manner as to show it is the 

 vegetable production that is meant. " Fill thy purse 

 with money," says lago to Roderigo; " the food that 

 to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him 

 shortly as bitter as coloquintida." 



As, in these countries, we happily enjoy an ex- 

 emption from the devastation occasioned by these 

 insects, you will, perhaps, not be prepared to expect, 

 that twenty-three species of locust are now enume- 

 rated as British. The last specimen which I believe 

 has been recorded,* is one which was exhibited at a 

 meeting of our society, and was captured by Miss 

 Ball, at Ardmore, county of Waterford, Sept. 1835. 

 It was of a species first described by Mr. Curtis, and 

 named Locusta Christii, after Wm. Christ)*, esq., by 

 * Curtis's Illustrations of British Entomology, Aug. 1836, p. 608. 



