208 THE REV. F. A. WALKER, D.D., F.L.S., ON 



essential particulars. He rightly states that the Hebrew 

 word arheh (p. 597 of his book) occurs many times in the 

 Scriptures, and aptly describes the locust as regards its vast 

 multitudes, its sudden arrival, and its destructive power, and 

 that even if there were any doubt about its signification, 

 the context would be sufficient to denote its proper render- 

 ing. We are also at one as regards the statement that 

 -" char/ab " is rendered both grasshopper and locust and 

 mostly translated as the former. The inference that the 

 author draws is doubtless correct Avhen he says it seems to 

 have been less in size than the arheh, inasmuch as it is used 

 as a metaphor to express smallness. See, for example,. 

 Numbers xiii, 31-33, where is recorded the false report of 

 the spies whom Moses sent to inspect the land. The men 

 •who went up said, " We be not able to go up against the 

 people ; for they are stronger than we. And there we saw 

 giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants : and we 

 •were in our own sight as grasshoppers (chagabim), and so we 

 -were in their sight." A similar metaphor is employed by ihe 

 prophet Isaiah, ''It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the 

 earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers" 

 (xl, 22) and in Ecclesiastes xii, 5, extreme weakness is forcibly 

 'indicated by the words, " The grasshopper (cJiagab) shall be 

 a burden." 



I am not so certain that I can concur with the author in 

 his observation which immediately follows : — " Now the two 

 principal species of locust which travel in bands and 

 devastate the country are the common migratory locust 

 ( (Edipoda migratoria) and the Acridium peregrina. If,therefore, 

 the word ar'beh expresses one of these insects, it is probable 

 that the ^voYd cliagab signifies the other." But by his showing 

 arheh is probably a larger species than chagab ; the one a 

 locust, the other a grasshopper. And as far as my own very 

 imperfect knowledge goes, the two kinds, the migratory 

 locust and the locust of the plague of Egypt, are of about the 

 same size. Then, too, he has bestowed on the migratory 

 locust the generic name of (Edipoda., which ma}^ possibly be 

 correct, but which title I had thought was confined to a 

 genus of grasshoppers. That the genus of grasshoppers 

 known by that name occms in Palestine as elscAvhere along 

 the Mediterranean I am well aware, and it has received that 

 appellation from a certain thickening in the joints of its legs, 

 and the mythical hero QLdipus is commonly i-eported to 

 •have sustained a swelhng of the knee joints owing to his 



