246 INSECT TRAiVSFORMATlONS. 



break into each other's premises. We cannot but ad- 

 mire the remarkable instinct implanted in those grubs 

 by their Creator; which guides them thus in lines di- 

 verging farther and t'artlier as they increase in size, 

 so that they are prevented from interfering v.ith the 

 comforts of one another. 



The various instances of voracity which we have 

 thus described sink into insignificance, when com- 

 pared with the terrible devastation produced by the 

 larvae of the locust [I.ocusfa migratoria, Leach), 

 — the scourge of oriental countries. ' A fire de- 

 voureth before them,' says the Prophet Joel, ' and 

 behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the 

 garden of Eden before them, and behind them a 

 desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape 

 them. The sound of their wjngs is as the sound of 

 chariots, of many horses running to battle; on the 

 tops of mountains shall they leap,*like the noise of a 

 flame of fire that devoureth the stubl)le, as a strong 

 people set in battle-array. Before their faces, the 

 people shall be much pained, all faces shall gather 

 blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they 

 shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall 

 march every one in his ways, and they shall not break 

 their ranks; neither shall one thrust another.'* 



The intelligent traveller, Dr Shaw, was an eye- 

 witness of their devastations in Barbary in 1724, 

 where they first appeared about the end of JNIarch, 

 their numbers increasing so much in the beginning 

 of April as literally to darken the sun; but by the 

 middle of May they began to disappear, retiring into 

 the JMettijiah and other adjacent plains to depo- 

 sit their eggs. ' These were no sooner hatched 

 in June,' he continues, ' than each of the broods 

 collected itself into a compact body, of a furlong or 

 more in square; and marching afterwards directly 



* Joel ii, 2, &c. 



