168 
SPORT AND WAR. 
CHAP. XIX. 
CHAPTER XIX. 
LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY. 
I will here, as an addendum to this article, note down 
my idea on the above subject. Many theories are set 
up regarding the possibility of the above-named insect 
forming an article of food, and some divines, particularly 
those who have been in the East, consider that the bean 
from, the locust-tree is the substance referred to in 
Holy Writ as forming the diet of John the Baptist in 
the wilderness, but I verily believe that it was the 
real locust, with wild honey, upon which he sub¬ 
sisted. 
In South Africa the locusts, under the name of 
grasshoppers, are truly a plague, as they were in Egypt. 
Periodically they come down from the interior in such 
vast flights that the very sun is darkened for days and 
days as the continued clouds of these insects pass on 
between heaven and earth. 
These great flights of locusts settle at night, and I 
have often seen them a foot or more deep upon the 
earth ; they cluster more particularly upon any tuft of 
