LETTER VII. 
INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 
INDIRECT INJURIES — continued, 
To look at a docust in a cabinet of insects, you would not, at first sight,-——~ 
deem it capable of being the source of so much evil to mankind as stands 
on record against it. “This is but a small creature,” you would say, 
“and the mischief which it causes cannot be far beyond the proportion of 
its bulk. The locusts so celebrated in history must surely be of the Indian 
kind mentioned by Pliny, which were three feet in length, with legs so 
strong that the women used them as saws. I see, indeed, some resem- 
blance to the horse’s head, but where are the eyes of the elephant, the 
neck of the bull, the horns of the stag, the chest of the lion, the belly of 
the scorpion, the wings of the eagle, the thighs of the camel, the legs of the 
ostrich, and the tail of the serpent, all of which the Arabians mention as 
attributes of this widely-dreaded insect destroyer!; but of which in the 
insect before me I discern little or no likeness?” Yet, although this ani- 
mal be not very tremendous for its size, not very terrific in its appearance, 
it is the very same whose ravages have been the theme of naturalists and 
historians in all ages, and upon a close examination you will find it to be 
peculiarly fitted and furnished for the execution of its office. It is armed 
with two pairs of very strong jaws, the upper terminating in short and the 
lower in long teeth, by which it can both lacerate and grind its food—its 
stomach is of extraordinary capacity and powers—its hind legs enable it 
to leap to a considerable distance, and its ample vans are calculated to 
catch the wind as sails, and so to carry it sometimes over the sea; and 
although a single individual can effect but little evil, yet when the entire 
surface ofa country is covered by them, and every one makes bare the spot 
on which it stands, the mischief produced may be as infinite as their num- 
bers. So well do the Arabians know their power, that they make a locust. 
Say to Mahomet, “We are the army of the great God; we produce 
ninety-nine eggs; if the hundred were completed, we should consume the 
whole earth and all that is in it.”? 
Since it is possible you may not have paid particular attention to the 
accounts given by various authors, both ancient and modern, of the almost 
Incredible injury done to the human race by these creatures, I shall now 
lay before you some of the most striking particulars of their devastations 
that I have been able to collect, 
The earliest plague of this kind which has been recorded, appears also 
to have been the most direful in its immediate effects that ever was inflicted 
pon any nation. I am speaking, as you may well suppose, of the locusts 
1 Bochart, Hierozoic. P. ii. 1. iv. c. 5. 475. 2 Tbid., ubi supr. c. 6. 485. 
