444 LETTERS. 
digefted in order, to be inferted in the tranfadlions 
of the Royal Academy of Sciences. 
I shall leave Writers on the feriptures the liber- 
ty to make what they pleafe of St. John’s 
calling them the Gemma: or buds of different 
kinds of trees, according to the old Grecian Fa- 
ther Ifiod®rus Felufiota; the fruit of the Crab-tree, 
according to fome Interpreters ; or birds, as fome 
Calvinifts imagined ; but it is certain that this hy- 
pothefis is fuch, that iElianus, Thucydides, De- 
mofthenes or Ariftotle, could never know their 
meaning. I am of opinion, that if any Interpreter 
of the feriptures fliould affert, that the axgife of St. 
John are not locufts, and draw this conclufion, 
that St. John did not eat lotufts, becaufe they have 
never been eaten by any nation •, he ought to make a 
pilgrimage to thofe places where they are eat at 
this day ; I am perfuaded he would not long re- 
main an unbeliever in this matter. 
Before I quit this fubjedl of locufts, I will im- 
part to you fome obfervations I have made on 
thefe infedts, which for feveral years have afforded 
fo much matter for difpute in Europe, that it is 
become well worth our attention to fet this affair 
in a clear light. 
(i.) The gralhopper or locuft is not formed for 
travelling over the fea ; I had an opportunity of 
obferving this on my return from Cyprus to 
Smyrna. As we were becalmed for fome days on 
the coaft of Carmania, we daily got fome graf- 
hoppers on board from the continent, and I then 
had the pleafure of feeing what miferable failors 
thefe infedts are. The locuft has, like the lark, 
a quality from Nature, that it it cannot fly far, 
but muft alight almoft as foon as it rifes. If they in- 
tend, I know not by what inftindl, to fly over a fea 
or 
