208 The Rocky Mountain Locust. 



[Fig. 39.] 



and of antiquity ; or of endeavoring to clear up the con- 

 fusion which results from the popular application of this 

 last term to the Periodical Cicada or Harvest-fly — an 

 insect (Fig. 39) which dwells, in its early life, under 

 ground, and feeds by sucking the sap of 

 trees, and which is no more capable, like the 

 true locust, of devastating our grain fields 

 than a calf is of killing and devouring our 

 sheep. Yet the ceaseless preaching about 

 the popular misapplication of these terms 

 will avail nothing so long as the popular 

 error is encouraged by the preachers them- 

 selves adopting the misapplication. The 

 popular names of a country should be 

 respected as much as possible, especially for 

 objects peculiar to the country, and I would 



Cicada, or mis- ° x J 



called locust: with be the last to try and change them for 



one wing removed, . 



so as to show the trivial reasons; but when, as in this instance, 



beak and ovipos- ' . . . , _ 



itor. the name used lor centuries in the older 



countries, and become familiar as household words through 

 the widely disseminated Scriptures, is supplanted by a new 

 one, and transferred to an entirely different insect, there 

 is no excuse for perpetuating the popular error. 



We may talk of shipping sl car-load, and of the sun's 

 rising, from now till doomsday; and, though, to the intelli- 

 gent and hypercritical mind the expressions will ever savor 

 of incorrectness, no one is foolish enough to try and reform 

 them, because they are universal, wherever the English 

 language is spoken. Change in universal and long estab- 

 lished customs is neither possible, as a rule, nor advisable; 

 and it is doubtful if any reform could be brought about in 

 our present Gregorian calendar, for instance, even if the 

 advantage of regulating the divisions of the year by the 

 astronomical conditions of the earth's orbit could be fully 



