I THE LOCUSTS. 167 



not seem to be understood. Those of our native locusts, whose 

 flight is the most noisy, are the coral-winged, the yellow- 

 winged, and the broad- winged species. But as these are 

 comparatively small insects, and never assemble in such great 

 swarms as the much larger migrating locusts of Asia and 

 Africa, the noise of their flight bears no comparison to that 

 of the latter. When a large number of these take flight 

 together, it is said that the noise is like the rushing of a 

 whirlwind ; and hence we read, of the symbolical locusts 

 of the Apocalypse, that the sound of their wings was as 

 the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle ; * 

 and of others, that their coming is like the noise of chariots 

 on the tops of mountains, or the crackling of stubble when 

 overrun and consumed by a flame of fire.f 



The East seems to have suffered severely at various times 

 from the irruptions of immense swarms of locusts, darkening 

 the sky during their passage, stripping the surface of the 

 earth, where they alight, of all vestiges of vegetation, and 

 thus reducing, in an inconceivably short time, the most fertile 

 regions to barren wastes. The ground over which they have 

 passed presents the appearance of having been scorched by 

 fire ; and hence the name of locust, which is derived from the 

 Latin, ^ and means a burnt place, is highly expressive of the 

 desolation occasioned by their ravages. Famine and pesti- 

 lence have sometimes followed their appearance, as we find 

 recorded by various writers. In the Scriptures ^ frequent 

 mention is made of the destructive powers of locusts, and 

 these accounts are fully confirmed by the testimony of numer- 

 ous travellers in Asia and Africa, some of whom have been 

 eyewitnesses of the devastations of these insects. Among 



* Eevelation ix. 9. t Joel ii. 5. 



J Locus and nskis. 



§ For an explanation of the various passages in "which allusion is made to lo- 

 custs, and for much interesting matter relating to the history of these insects, as 

 contained in the Bible and elucidated by the accounts of historians and travellers, 

 the reader is refeiTCd to the article Locust in the learned and instructive work of 

 my father, entitled, " The Natural History of the Bible, by Thaddeus Mason Har- 

 ris," 8vo, Boston, 1820, 



