Habits, and Power for Injury. 



87 



by the force of gravity, thousands being killed by the fall, 

 if it is upon stone or other hard surface."* In alighting, 

 they circle in myriads about you, beating against every- 

 thing animate or inanimate ; driving into open doors and 

 windows ; heaping about your feet and around your 

 buildings ; their jaws constantly at work biting and test- 

 ing all things in seeking what they can devour. In the 

 midst of the incessant buzz and noise which such a flight 

 produces ; in face of the unavoidable destruction every- 

 where going on, one is bewildered and awed at the 

 collective power of the ravaging host, which calls to mind 

 so forcibly the plagues of Egypt. 



The noise their myriad jaws make when engaged in their 

 work of destruction, can be realized by any one who has 

 " fought " a prairie fire, or heard the flames passing along 

 before a brisk wind : the low crackling and rasping — 

 the general effect of the two sounds, is very much the 

 same. Southey, in his Thalaba,f most graphically pictures 

 this noise produced by the flight and approach of locusts : 



" Onward they come, a dark, continuous cloud 

 Of congregated myriads numberless, 

 The rushing of whose wings was as the sound 

 Of a broad river, headlong in its course 

 Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar 

 Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm, 

 Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks! " 



Nothing, however, can surpass the prophet Joel's ac- 

 count of the appearance and ravages of these insects. 

 Omitting the figurative parts, it is accurate and graphic 

 beyond measure : 



" A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds 

 and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the 

 mountains ; a great people and a strong ; there hath not 



* Wm. N. Byers, Hayden's Geol. Surv., 1870, p. 282. 

 t L, 169. 



