PACKAUD.] THE LOCUSTS OF THE OLD WORLD. 649 



howevfM-, so tliic'k to^otber but that tl'oy could escape a stick waved 

 backward and lorward. When tbey alij^hted, they were more numerous 

 ihan the leaeea in the field, aud the surface became reddisU instead of 

 green. The swarm having once alighted, the individua,ls flew from side 

 to side iu all directions. Locusts are not an uncommon isest in this 

 country. Already during this season several smaller swarms had come 

 up Irom the souih, wbere, appaiently, as in all other i)arts of the world, 

 they are bred in the deserts. The poor cottagers in vain attempted, by 

 lighting fires, bv shouts, and by waving blanches, to arrest the attack. 

 This species of locust closely resembles, and perhaps is identical with, 

 the Gryllm migratoriiia of Syria and Palestine." 



THE LOCUSTS OF THE OLD WORLD. 



That the calamities which have befallen the farmers of the West are 

 less grievous than those resulting from locust invasions in the Old 

 World; that there is a general similarity in the habits of locusts the 

 world over, and that the causes of their migrations are of the same 

 general nature, may be seen by a perusal of the following statements, 

 which I have taken from sources as a rule inaccessible to most readers. 

 For brief popular accounts of the Old World locusts the works of Kirby 

 and Spence, Westwood, and of subsequent com]>ilers may be consulted. 

 The following historical sketch of locust invasions in the Old World is 

 condensed from an article by KudoU Gottscliaffin " Unserezeit," (Febru- 

 ary, 1870, Leipzig). The first account after that of Joel, in the liible, 

 ■whose remarks apply to Egyi)t, Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor, is the 

 statement of Ororius, that in I he year of the world 3800 certain regions 

 of North Africa were visited by monstrous swarms; the wind blew them 

 into the sea, and the bodies washed ashore "stank more than the corpses 

 of a hundred thousand men." Another locust plague, resulting in 

 a famine and contagious disorders, according to St. Augustine, oc- 

 curred in the kingdom of Masiuissa, and caused the death of about 

 800,000 men. Pliny states that the locusts visited Italy, flying from 

 Africa. In Europe locust invasions have been recorded since 1333, 

 when they appeared iu Germany. Mouflit states that in 1478 the country 

 about V^enice was invaded, and 30,000 people died of famine. In 1725 

 the region about liome was overrun by locusts. 



In FruDco, o.varms appeared at the close of the middle ages. In 1747 

 there was a great iuvasion of Southern aud Middle Europe, especially 

 the shores of the Danube, Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transvlvania. Be- 

 fore and after this date vast sw'arms were observed in Africa and Asia. 

 Adansin iu 1750 observed them iu the Senegal. In 1709, Jackson, iu 

 his " Journey through Morocco," states that the whole country betweeu 

 Mogador and Tanger, on the borders of the Sahara, was covered with 

 them, and they were in many cases borne into the ocean westward. 



Iu Ilussia, whose southern steppes form the home of the locust, vast 

 swarms in the time of Charles XII, who was then in Bessarabia, came 

 there from the region of the Black Sea. Bussia, Poland, and Hun- 

 gary were otten visited by them. In 1828 aud 1829 enormous swarms 

 invaded the coast of the Black Sea. In 1859, in the South Kussian 

 provinces of Cherson, and iu Bessarabia, a tract GO versts long and 

 about one-third as wide was overrun by tirem. Taschenberg gives the 

 locust years in Bussia in the present centurv as follows: 1800, 1801, 

 1803, 1812-'10, 1820-'22, 1824 and 1825, 1828-'31, 1834-'3G, .1844, 1847, 

 1850, and 1851, 1859 and 1801. 



