194 INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



in lat. 18° north, and the nearest land being over 450 miles, 

 they were surrounded for two days by large swarms of 

 locusts of a large size ; and in the afternoon of the second 

 day, in a squall from the north-west, the sky was completely 

 black with them. They covered every part of the brig im- 

 mediately, sails, rigging, cabin, &c. It is a little singular 

 how they could have supported themselves in the air so long, 

 as there was no land to the north-west for several thousand 

 miles. Two days afterwards, the weather being moderate, 

 the brig sailed through swarms of them floating dead upon 

 the waters."^ 



With respect to the course which the locusts pursue, Has- 

 selquist has observed that they migrate in a direct meridian 

 line from south to north, passing from the deserts of Arabia, 

 which is the great cradle of them, to Palestine, Syria, Car- 

 mania, Natolia, Bithynia, Constantinople, Poland, &c. — they 

 never turn either to the east or to the west. ^ But this must 

 be a mistaken notion ; for those which Major Moor saw at 

 Poonah, of which I have given an account above ^, must have 

 come due east. Mr. Jackson also noticed their course north 

 of the line to be towards the south* ; and Sparrman tells us 

 that those south of the line migrate in the same direction. ^ 



I fear that Hasselquist's question, — Could they not by 

 fright, or some other method, be turned from their dreadful 

 course, to steer for some river, and by that means be obliged 

 to destroy themselves?^ — must be answered in the negative. 

 All such experiments, it is to be apprehended, would be 

 about as effectual as sending an army, with all the apparatus 

 of war, to take the field against them, as this author says is 

 done in Syria, where the Bashaw of Tripoli once raised a 

 force of 4000 soldiers to fight the locusts, and very summarily 

 ordered all to be hanged who, thinking it beneath them to 

 waste their valour upon such pigmy foes, refused to join the 

 party. ^ I am, &c. 



1 Ann. Nat. Hist. vi. 527. The authenticity of the above accounts is fully 

 proved by a fact mentioned by Mr. Darwin, — that a large grasshopper (Aay- 

 dium) flew on board the Beagle when she was to windward of the Cape de Verd 

 Islands, and when the nearest point of land, not directly opposed to the trade- 

 wind, was Cape Blanco, on the west of Africa, 370 miles distant. (Journal in 

 Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, p. 1 86. ) 



^ Voyage to the Levant, p. 446, 447. 3 See p. 188. 



4 Travels, 54. 5 Travels, i. 366. ^ Travels, 455. ? Travels, 447. 



