292' 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
disengage themselves from it, and leave the leg behind them. 
This, however, does not grow again, as with crabs or spiders ; 
for as they are animals but of a single year’s continuance, 
they have not sufficient time for repairing these accidental 
misfortunes. The loss of their leg also prevents them from 
flying ; for, being unable to lift themse.lves in the air, they 
have not room upon the ground for the proper expansion of 
their wings. If they be handled roughly, they will bite very 
fiercely ; and when they fly, they make a noise with their 
wings. They generally keep in the plain, where the grass 
is luxuriant, and the ground rich ard fertile : there they de- 
posit their eggs, particularly in those cracks which are formed 
by the heat of the sun. 
Such are the habits and nature of these little vocal insects, 
that swarm in our meadows, and enliven the landscape. The 
larger kinds only differ from them in size, in rapidity of flight, 
an,l the powers of injuring mankind, by swarming upon the 
productions of the earth. The quantity of grass which a 
few grasshoppers that sport in the fields can destroy is 
trifling ; but when a swarm of locusts two or three miles 
long, and several yards deep, settle upon a field, the conse- 
quences are frightful. The annals of every country are marked 
with the devastation which such a multitude of insects pro- 
duces ; and though they seldom visit Europe in such danger- 
ous swarms as formerly, yet, in some of the southern 
kingdoms, they are still formidable. Those which have at 
uncertain intervals visited Europe, in our memory, are 
supposed to have come from Africa, and the animal is called 
the Great Brown Locust. It was seen in several parts of 
England, in the year 1718, and many dreadful consequences 
were apprehended from its appearance. This insect is about 
three inches long ; and has two horns, or feelers, an inch in 
length. The head and horns are of a brownish colour; 
it is blue about the mouth, as also on the inside of the 
larger legs. The shield that covers the back is greenish ; 
and the upper side of the body brown, spotted with black, 
and the under side purple. The upper wings are brown, 
with small dusky spots, with one larger at the tips ; the 
under wings are more transparent, and of a light brown, 
tinctured with green, but there is a dark cloud of spots near 
the tips. 
There is no animal in the creation that multiplies so fast 
as these, if the sun be warm, and the soil in which their 
eggs are deposited be dry. 
The scripture, which was written in a country where the 
locust made a distinguished feature in the picture of Nature, 
has given us several very striking images of this animal’s 
