CHAP. XIX. 
LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY. 
169 
grass or inequality on the ground. They generally take 
wing again the next day ; but on very still days—that is, 
when there is no wind—they will not take flight but 
move on, flying only short distances, and devouring 
everything before them. Where they settle at night 
not a vestige of herbage is left the next morning. Provi¬ 
dentially their course is generally to the.south, which 
brings them to the great Indian Ocean, on whose 
bosom they at last alight, and are thrown back again 
upon the beach dead. 
I have seen them washed up on the sands for hun¬ 
dreds of miles, some five or six feet deep, polluting the 
air to a great distance from decomposition. 
The country through which this scourge passes is 
denuded of all pasture and green herb, and nothing 
can save the farmer’s crops or gardens; nevertheless 
every description of animal will live and even fatten 
on the locusts themselves. Horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, 
dogs, poultry, all devour them with avidity, and 
become so fond of the insect that, when the locusts are 
getting scarce, you may see any or all of these animals 
running after a single locust on the wing to catch it. 
There is an after-result of this scourge which is worse 
than the first: wdierever the vast millions of locusts 
alight at night they deposit their eggs, and in a few 
months you see the very earth become alive with 
diminutive insects, which develop themselves from 
