210 THE KEY. F. A. WALKER, D.T)., Y.L.S., ON 



bisons that blackened the prairies of America, and the progress 

 of even the wingless young* is as irresistible as that of the 

 adult insects. Regiments of soldiers have in vahi attempted 

 to stop them. Trenches have been dug across their path, 

 only to be filled up in a few minutes with the advancing 

 hosts, over whose bodies the millions of survivors continued 

 their march. When the trenches were filled with water, 

 the result was the same ; and even when fire was substituted 

 for water the flames were quenched by the masses of locusts 

 that fell into them. AVhen they come to a tree, they climb 

 up it in swarms, and devour every particle of foliage, not 

 even sparing the bark of the smaller branches. They ascend 

 the walls, of houses that come in the line of their march, 

 swarming in at the windows, and gnawing in their hunger 

 the verv woodwork of the furniture. 



Nothing can be more vividly accurate than the splendid 

 description of the locust armies (Joel ii, 2-11). First we 

 have the darkness caused by them as they fly like black 

 clouds between the sun and the earth. Then conies the 

 contrast between the blooming and fertile aspect of the land 

 before they settle on it, and its utter desolation Avhen they 

 leave it. Then the poet-prophet alludes to the rushing noise 

 of their flight, which he compares to the sound of chariots 

 upon the mountains, and to the compact masses in which 

 they pass over the ground like soldiers on the march. The 

 impossibility of checking them is shown in verse 8, and their 

 climbing the walls of houses and entering the chambers in 

 verse 9. 



Modern travellei-s have given accounts of these locust 

 armies which exactly correspond with the sacred narrative. 

 One traveller mentions that after a severe storm the locusts 

 were destroyed in such multitudes that they were heaped in 

 a sort of wall, varying from three to four feet in height, 

 fifty miles in length, and almost unapproachable on account 

 of the odour of their decomposing bodies. 



The remainder of the chapter on locusts in Bible Animals 

 (the whole of which well deserves perusal by all present on 

 account of its fidelity and its numerous quotations from 

 various authors, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, in 

 reference to the locust) relates to the use of locusts as food. 

 Notice has already been made of the Israelites, whose 

 dieting was so scrupulously limited, having been permitted 

 the use of the locust. 



Herodotus, Avhen describing the various tribes of Libyans, 



