Chap. 36.] 
ANTS. 
37 
Those from Africa are the ones which chiefly devastate 
Italy ; and more than once the Eoman people have been obliged 
to have recourse to the Sibylline Books, to learn what remedies 
to employ under their existing apprehensions of impending 
famine. In the territory of Cyrenaica there is a law, which 
even compels the people to make war, three times a year, 
against the locusts, first, by crushing their eggs, next by kill- 
ing the young, and last of all by killing those of full growth ; 
and he who fails to do so, incurs the penalty of being treated 
as a deserter. In the island of Lemnos also, there is a certain 
measure fixed by law, which each individual is bound to fill 
with locusts which he has killed, and then bring it to the 
magistrates. It is for this reason, too, that they pay such respect 
to the jack-daw, which flies to meet the locusts, and kills them 
in great numbers. In Syria, also, the people are placed under 
martial law, and compelled to kill them : in so many countries 
does this dreadful pest prevail. The Parthians look upon 
them as a choice food,^^ and the grasshopper as well. The voice 
of the locust appears to proceed from the back part of the head. 
It is generally believed that in this place, where the shoulders 
join on to the body, they have, as it were, a kind of teeth, and 
that it is by grinding these against each other that they pro- 
duce the harsh noise which they make. It is more especially 
about the two equinoxes that they are to be heard, in the 
same way that we hear the chirrup of the grasshopper about 
the summer solstice. The coupling of locusts is similar to 
that of all other insects that couple, the female supporting 
the male, and turning back the extremity of the tail towards 
him ; it is only after a considerable time that they separate. 
In all these kinds of insects the male is of smaller size than 
the female. 
# 
CHAP. 36. (30.)— ANTS. 
The greater part of the insects produce a maggot. Ants also 
produce one in spring, which is similar to an egg,^* and they 
32 Julius Obsequens speaks of a pestilence there, created by tlie dead 
bodies of the locusts, which caused the death of 8000 persons. 
33 See also B. vi. c. 35. 
3* What are commonly called ants* eggs, are in reality their larvae and 
nymphee. Enveloped in a sort of tunic, these last, Cuvier says, are like 
grains of corn, and from this probably has arisen the story that they lay 
