ORTHOPTERA. 309 
The Arabs have also an infallible means of ridding themselves of 
the locusts. Here is what General Daumas tells us on the subject. 
According to Ben-Omar, the Prophet read one day, on the wings 
of a locust, written in Hebrew characters: “We are the troops 
of the Most High God ; we each one lay ninety-nine eggs. If we 
we were to lay a hundred, we should devastate the whole world.” 
Upon which Mahomet, greatly alarmed, made an ardent prayer, 
in which he begged God. to destroy these enemies of Mussulmans. 
Tn answer to this invocation, the angel Gabriel told Mahomet 
that a part of his prayer should be granted. Since that epoch, 
indeed, words of invocation to the Prophet, written on a piece of 
paper, and enclosed in a reed, which -is planted in the middle of a 
wheat-field or orchard, have the power of turning away the locusts.* 
This receipt is infallible, at least so say the devout Mussulmans. 
There exists another quite as efficacious. They take four locusts, 
and write on the wings of each a verse of the Koran (four verses 
of the Koran are appropriated to this purpose). They then let 
the locusts thus marked fly into the midst of the swarm, and the 
flying army immediately take another direction. 
By what the Arabs say, the locusts possess a number of virtues. 
When you see them in a dream, they announce the future; if you 
dream that you are eating them, it is a good omen ; if you dream 
that it rains golden locusts, God will restore to you that which 
you have lost, &e. When Omar-ben-el-Khottal was Caliph, the 
locusts seemed to have completely disappeared. There was great 
sadness in the country in consequence. The Caliph especially 
was very much afflicted at it. He sent carriers into Yemen, into 
Cham, and into Irak, to see if they could not find a few. One of 
the envoyés succeeded in his mission, and brought back a handful 
of locusts. “God is great!” eried Omar, who from that day had 
no more misgivings. In order to understand first the despair 
and then satisfaction of the Caliph Omar, it is written, so say the 
Mussulmans, that the human race will disappear from the earth 
after the extinction of the locusts; that these insects were formed 
of the rest of the clay out of which man had been formed, and 
that they were destined to serve him as food. 
* «Te Grand Desert,” par le Général E. Daumas et E. de Chaucel, in 18mo- 
Paris. 1860. 
