48 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
Northern Africa has a locust history reaching back to the days of the 
Pharaohs : 
And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought 
an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night ; and when it waa morn- 
ing, the east wind brought the locusts. 
And the Lord turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts and 
cast them into the Red Sea. 100 
The fact of their passing over the Red Sea from one side to the other, 
or rather of going from Arabia into Egypt and returning, is noted by 
modern travelers. 
The statements of Paulus and Orosius, 101 Julius Obsequeus, 102 and 
Eutropius, in reference to the vast hordes of locusts cast into the sea 
on the coast of Cyrene during the consulate of M. P. Hypsaenus and 
M. F. Flaccus, and producing a pestilence that destroyed 800,000 people, 
hosts of cattle, fowl, and wild beasts, has been so often repeated that it 
is only necessary to mention it here in order to add that it is scarcely 
worthy of belief. The fact of the locusts being cast into the sea is valu- 
able as adding one to many incidents of this kind. Leo Africanus 101 
speaks of immense swarms in Northern Africa, especially in Mauritania. 
Among other old works which speak of locust ravages in Northern 
Africa and Abyssinia, but contain little that is of any value in the 
present discussion, we may mention the following: Job Ludolph 10 * gives 
an account of locust ravages in Abyssinia, also in other parts of Northern 
Africa. Joano dos Santos 105 describes the terrible famine brought on the 
inhabitants of Eastern Ethiopia by the locust ravages. Frances Alva- 
rez 106 speaks of the incredible multitude of locusts that fall upon the 
earth, and that hide the sun by their swarms. Nicolaus Clenardus 107 
makes mention of seeing immense swarms at Fezzan. 
One of the fullest accounts of the locusts of Northern Africa preced- 
ing the later investigations of the French naturabsts is by J. G. Jack- 
son. 108 He says " they are produced from some unknown physical cause, 
and proceed from the desert, always coming from the South." He re- 
marks that — 
In traveling from Mogodor to Tangier, before the plague in 1799, the country was 
covered with them. A singular incident then occurred at El Araiche. The whole 
country, from the confines of the Sahara to that place, was ravaged by them ; but 
after crossing the river El Kos, they were not to be seen, though there was nothing to 
prevent them from flying across it ; moreover, they were all moving that way — that is, 
to the north ; but when they reached the banks of the river they proceeded eastward, 
so that the gardens and fields north of El Araiche were full of vegetables, fruits, and 
grain. * * * In the year 1799 these destructive insects were carried away into the 
"»Exodus, x, 13, 19. 
""Contra Paganos, 1. 5, c. 11. 
!t«Cap. 30. 
103 "Geographical Hist. Africa," Engl. Transl., 349. 
101 "History of Ethiopia." Latin Ed., Bk. 1. n. xcvi, 13 and Gents transl., p. 67. 
106 " Pinkerton's Voyages," vol. 16, p. 717. 
106 Itinerary to Ethiopia. 
>° ? Epist. L. 1 p. 73, quoted by Ludolph, Latin Edn. 
««"An Account of Morocco, &c," 2d edn., p. 100, &c. 
