832 INSECTA— LOCUST. 



THE LOCUS Ti 



Is about three inches long, and has two horns, or feelers, an inch in length. 

 The head and horns are of a brownish color ; it is blue about the mouth, as 

 also on the inside of the larger legs. The shield that covers the back is 

 greenish ; and the upper side of the body brown, spotted with black, and the 

 under side purple. The upper wings are brown, with small dusky spots, 

 with one larger at the tips ; the under wings are more transparent, and of 

 a light brown, tinged with green ; but there is a dark cloud of spots near 

 the tips. 



There is no animal in the creation that multiplies so fast as this, if the 

 sun be warm, and the soil in which their eggs are deposited be dry. 



The Scripture, which was written in a country where the locust made a 

 distinguished feature in the picture of nature, has given us several very 

 striking images of this animal's numbers and rapacity. It compares an 

 army, where the numbers are almost infinite, to a swarm of locusts ; it de- 

 scribes them as rising out of the earth, where they are produced ; as pursu- 

 ing a settled march to destroy the fruits of the earth, and co-operate with 

 divine indignation. 



When the locusts take the field, as we are assured, they have a leader at 

 their head, whose flight they observe, and pay a strict attention. to all his 

 motions. They appear at a distance, like a black cloud, which, as it ap- 

 proaches, gathers upon the horizon, and almost hides the light of the day. 

 It often happens, that the husbandman sees this imminent calamity pass away 

 without doing him any mischief ; and the whole swarm proceed onward to 

 settle upon the labors of some less fortunate country. But wretched is the 

 district upon which they settle ; they ravage the meadow and the pasture 

 ground ; strip the trees of their leaves, and the garden of its beauty ; the 

 visitation of a few minutes destroys the expectations of a year; and a 

 famine but too frequently ensues. In their native tropical climates, they 

 are not so dreadful as in the southern parts of Europe. There, though the 

 plain and the forest be stripped of their verdure, the power of vegetation is 



• Acridium migratorium, Lat. 



