•220 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall 

 quake before them, the heavens shall tremble: the sun 

 and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw 

 their shining ! " The usual way in which they are destroy- 

 ed is also noticed by the prophet. "I will remove far off 

 from you the northern army, and will drive him into a 

 land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east 

 sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his 

 stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, be- 

 cause he hath done great things a !" 



I think, after a serious consideration of all these well 

 attested facts, when locusts contend with the two-legged 

 destroyers of the human race for proud pre-eminence in 

 mischief, you will find it difficult to determine to which 

 the palm should be decreed ; and you will admire the pro- 

 priety with which, in the above and other passages of 

 Holy Writ, they are selected as symbols of the great ra- 

 vagers of the earth of our own species. 



In many of the above instances these devastators ap- 

 pear to have crossed the seas, but Hasselquist asserts that 

 they are not formed for such extensive flights. " The 

 grasshopper or locust," says he, "is not formed for tra- 

 velling over the sea, — it cannot fly far, but must alight 

 as soon as it rises ; — for one that came on board us a hun- 

 dred certainly were drowned. We observe in the months 

 of May and June a number of these insects coming from 

 the south, and directing their course to the northern shore; 

 they darken the sky like a thick cloud : but scarcely have 

 they quitted the shore, when they, who a moment before 

 ravaged and ruined the country, cover the surface of the 

 sea with their dead bodies. — By what instinct do these 

 a Joel ii. 2-10.20. 



