44 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
•cradle of these animals." lie often saw clouds of them in Persia and Syria. 
The species found in Arabia was named by Mr. Forskal Gryllus gregarius, 
which, he thinks, is different from that named by Linnaeus G. migra- 
torius. 13 " Jidda or Dsjidda," according to his map, is in Arabia, on the 
Red Sea, latitude 21° 28', near Mecca. 
Volney, 74 speaking of Syria, states that the inhabitants of Syria have 
remarked that the locusts are bred by mild winters, and that they al- 
ways come from the deserts of Arabia. That the south and southeast- 
erly winds drive with violence these clouds of locusts over the Mediter- 
ranean, where such quantities of them are drowned that when their 
carcasses are thrown on the shore they infect the air for several days, 
•even to a great distance. 
St. Jerome speaks of seeing the thickest swarms traversing Palestine 
and Laying waste the land. 75 
While Olivier found the destructive locusts in a great part of North- 
ern Persia, other travelers met with them along the southern borders 
of this country. Chardiu saw near Bender Abassi, in the middle of 
March, 1074, so vast a cloud that the sky was completely darkened by 
them. They were red and very large. 76 J. Morier has, in his opinion, 
met with the same species (which Kefferstein correctly supposes cannot 
be G. migratorius) in the year 1811, at exactly the same season, near 
Abuschahr, during a southeast wind. The insects had legs three 
inches long, body and head a bright yellow. 77 He also observed them 
at Shiraz the 11th of July, driven by a southwest wind. Ousley 78 also 
observed locusts in the southern part of Persia. They also visit Kur- 
distan and Southern Media. 78 " 
Burkhardt 79 asserts that Nedjed, or the central and elevated portion of 
Arabia, is especially subject to the ravages of the locusts. That when 
they have devoured the crops they enter the huts of the inhabitants, 
•even into the innermost chambers, eating everything, even to the leather 
and water-bottles ; and that they multiply rapidly and to fearful num- 
bers by a three times repeated laying of eggs. He further states that 
when he visited the peninsula of Sinai in 1816 the locusts had already 
for five continuous years destroyed the harvests. The same writer 80 re- 
marks as follows, in reference to the Syrian locusts : 
It was at Naeme (a place east of the Jordan) that I saw for the first time a swarm of 
locusts ; they so completely covered the ground that my horse killed numbers of them 
at every step. This species is called in Syria Djered Nedjdyat or Djerad Teyar, that is, 
the flying locusts, being thus distinguished from the other species called Djerad Dsahhaf 
or devouring locusts. The former have a yellow body, a gray breast, and wings of a 
73 " Travels through Arahia and other Countries in the East." Heron's translation, ii, 334 et teq. 
71 " Travels through Syria and Egypt in the years 1773-75." Translated into English, i, 305. 
75 Comment, on Joel, chap. 2. 
76 "Voyage," vol. ii, p. 221.— Ritter. 
77 " 2d journey," 43.— Bitter. 
78 " Travels," i, 195. 
784 Kich. Kurdistan, 173 ; Kinneir, p. 43 ; Chardin, iii, 44. 
79 " Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabis," ii, 89. 
*> " Travels in Syria and the Holy Land," 238. 
