INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 191 



made prisoners. These animals are about three times the size 

 of an English grasshopper. They migrate from Africa, and 

 their spring visits are very destructive ; for in a single night 

 they will entirely eat up a field of corn."^ 



The noise the locusts make when engaged in the work of 

 destruction has been compared to the sound of a flame of fire 

 driven by the wind, and the effect of their bite to that of 

 fire.^ The poet Southey has very strikingly described the 

 noise produced by their flight and approach : — 



" Onward they came a dark continuous cloud 

 Of congregated myriads numberless, 

 The rushing of whose wings was as the soimd 

 Of a broad river headlong in its course 

 Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar 

 Of a wild ocean in tlie autumn storm 

 Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks !"3 



But no account of the appearance and ravages of these ter- 

 rific insects, for correctness and sublimity, comes near that of 

 the prophet Joel, 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 been ever the like, neither shall be any more after 

 it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth 

 before them, and behind them a flame burneth : the land is 

 as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a de- 

 solate wilderness ; yea, and nothing shall escape them. Like 

 the noise of chariots^ on the tops of mountains shall they 

 leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the 

 stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their 

 faces the people shall be much pained : all faces shall gather 

 blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall 

 climb the wall like men of war ; and they shall march every 

 one on his ways, raid they shall not break their ranks ; nei- 

 ther shall one thrust another, they shall walk every one in 

 his path : and when they fall upon the sword they shall not 



1 Scott's Excursions in the Mountains of Ronda and Granada. The same plan 

 is adopted for the destruction of these insects in some parts of the United States ; 

 Deep trenches being dug at the end of fields into which the grasshoppers are 

 driven with branches, and then destroyed by throwing the earth upon them. 



2 See Bochart, Hierozoic. P. 1. iv. c. 5. 474, 475. 



3 Southey's Thalaba, \. 169. 



4 Of the sym.bolical locusts in the Apocalypse it is said — "And the sound of 

 their wings was as the sound of chariots, of many horses running to battle." ix. 9. 



