The Zoologist— August, 1869. 1789 



menon seems to have been universally associated with the comet 

 which appeared in the same year, and with the conviction that the 

 locusts fell from the clonds. The last-named solution of difficulties in 

 physical science has been found perfectly satisfactory, and therefore 

 comforting, in tnany other cases of difficulty, such for instance as 

 nodules of iron pyrites, belemnites, magnetic iron, plant-lice, fishes, 

 frogs, toads, quails, lemmings and very many other objects that per- 

 tinaciously decline obedience to human arrangements for their well- 

 being : and when a sceptic hesitates for a moment to accept this 

 solution, he is at once met by inquiry, "Well, where could they come 

 from ? I am certain there were no thunder-bolts (or frogs or toads as 

 the case may be) in that field before." 



I have said the accounts of locusts are accordant: they are mostly 

 on this wise : the army is observed advancing like a cloud from the 

 east ; like a cloud also it disburthens itself of its load as it advances ; 

 a living load : the land is inundated with a devouring multitude ; the 

 locusts eat and pass onward, leaving no green thing on the face of the 

 earth: onward they travel, stopping only to eat; onward, still on- 

 ward, the main army passes on until it reaches the sea and perishes in 

 its waters : even then there is no end of the apparent evil : the sea 

 rejects their dead bodies which putrify on the shore, generating such 

 fevers and plagues as have [swept away hundreds of thousands of 

 human beings. A few brief extracts may illustrate this : hundreds of 

 similar ones might be made. 



" The eggs [of the locusts] were no sooner hatched than each 

 brood collected itself into a compact body of a furlong or more in 

 square, and marching directly forward towards the sea they let nothing 

 escape them ; they kept iheir ranks like men of war ; climbing over 

 as they advanced, every tree or wall that was in their wayj nay, they 

 entered into our very houses and bed-chambers like so many thieves." 

 — Shaw. 



" Shortly after sunrise the whole body [of locusts] begins to move 

 forwards in one direction, and with little deviation * * * they 

 uniformly travel toward a certain region. In this manner they advance 

 from morning till evening without halting, frequently at the rate of a 

 hundred fathoms and upwards in the course of a day. Although they 

 prefer marching along high roads, foot paths, or open tracts, yet when 

 their progress is opposed by bushes, hedges or ditches, they penetrate 

 through them." — Pallas. 



