Chapter IV: Part 4

That the belief that the appearance of Crickets in a house is a good omen, and prognosticates cheerfulness and plenty, is pretty generally entertained in England, may be inferred also from the manner in which it has been embodied by Cowper, in his address to a Cricket

Chirping on his kitchen hearth.

His words are:

Whereso’er be thine abode,
Always harbinger of good.

And again in that admirable little tale of Charles Dickens, entitled “The Cricket on the Hearth,” this good and happy superstition is embodied. “It’s sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has been so. To have a Cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in the world,” says its heroine.

All these superstitions are more or less entertained in America, brought here by the English themselves, and retained by their descendants. That the Cricket is the “harbinger of good,” it gives me pleasure to say, is the most common.

Another superstition obtaining in this country, and particularly in Maryland and Virginia, is that Crickets are old folks and ought not therefore to be destroyed. This probably arose from Crickets being found about the kitchen hearth where the old folks were accustomed to sit.

Milton chose for his contemplative pleasures a spot where Crickets resorted:

Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the Cricket on the hearth.[290]

The learned Scaliger is said to have been particularly delighted with the chirping of these animals, and was accustomed to keep them in a box for his amusement in his study.[291]

Mrs. Taylor, the writer of a very interesting series of papers on insects for Harper’s Magazine, relates that in her travels through Wales, she obtained several House-crickets in the old Castle of Caernarvon. These she carried with her, in her journeyings to and fro over the Kingdom, for several years, and at last brought them to this country, where they were liberated in the snuggest corner of a Southern hearth. Again a wanderer for many years, she went back to the old house to see how her chirping friends were coming on, but, alas! she was told by the then residents, with the utmost calmness, “they had had great difficulty in _scalding_ them out, and they hoped there was not one left on the premises!”[292]

In certain countries of Africa, Crickets are reported to constitute an article of commerce. Some persons rear them, feed them in a kind of iron oven, and sell them to the natives, who are very fond of their music, thinking it induces sleep.[293] De Pauw finds some traces of the Egyptian worship of the Scarabæus in this fondness for the music of the “holy Crickets,” as he calls them, of Madagascar! By the rearing of which insects, he tells us, the Africans make a living, and the rich would think themselves at enmity with heaven, if they did not preserve whole swarms in ovens constructed expressly for that purpose.[294]

The youth of Germany, Jaeger says, are extremely fond of Field-crickets, so much so, that there is scarcely a boy to be seen who has not several small boxes made expressly for keeping these insects in. So much delighted are they, too, with their music, that they carry these boxes of Crickets into their bed-rooms at night, and are soothed to sleep with their chirping lullaby.[295]

On the contrary, others, as has been before mentioned, think there is something ominous and melancholy in the Cricket’s cry, and use every endeavor to banish this insect from their houses. “Lidelius tells us,” says Goldsmith, “of a woman who was very much incommoded by Crickets, and tried, but in vain, every method of banishing them from her house. She at last accidentally succeeded; for having one day invited several guests to her house, where there was a wedding, in order to increase the festivity of the entertainment, she procured drums and trumpets to entertain them. The noise of these was so much greater than what the little animals were accustomed to, that they instantly forsook their situation, and were never heard in that mansion more.”[296] Like many other noisy persons, Crickets like to hear nobody louder than themselves.

In the Island of Sumatra, Capt. Stuart tells me, a black Cricket is looked upon with great respect, amounting almost to adoration. It is deemed a grievous sin to kill it.

Baskets full of Field-crickets, Lopes de Gomara says, were found among the provisions of the Indians of Jamaica when they were first discovered.[297]

“The Criquet called Gryllus,” says Pliny in the words of Holland, “doth mitigat catarrhs and all asperities offending the throat, if the same bee rubbed therewith: also if a man doe but touch the amygdals or almonds of the throat, with the hand wherewith he hath bruised or crushed the said Criquet, it will appease the inflamation thereof.”[298] Again, “The Cricket digged up and applied to the plase, earth and all where it lay, is very good for the ears. Nigridius,” continues Pliny, “attributeth many properties to this poore creature, and esteemeth it not a little: but the Magicians much more by a faire deale: and why so? Forsooth because it goeth, as it were, reculing backward, it pierceth and boreth a hole into the ground, and never ceaseth all night long to creake very shrill.

“The manner of hunting and catching them is this, They take a flie and tie it above the middest at the end of a long haire of one’s head, and so put the said flie into the mouth of the Cricquet’s hole; but first they blow the dust away with their mouth, for fear lest the flie should hide herself therein; the Cricket spies the sillie flie, seaseth upon her presently and claspeth her round, and so they are both drawne foorth together by the said haire.”[299]

At the present time, children in France practice the same method of capturing Crickets for amusement; substituting, however, an ant for the “sillie flie,” and a long straw for “the haire of one’s head.” Hence comes the common proverb in France, _il est sot comme un grillon_. A ruse for capturing the larva of the Cicindela, now commonly practiced by entomologists, is founded on the same principle.

Pliny further says: “The Cricquets above rehearsed, either reduced into a liniment, or else bound too, whole as they be, cureth the accident of the lap of the eare, wounds, contusions, bruises,” etc.[300]

Dr. James, quoting Schroder and Dale, says: “The ashes of the Cricket (_Gryllus domesticus_) exhibited, are said to be diuretic; the expressed juice, dropped into the eyes, is a remedy for weakness of the sight, and alleviates disorders of the tonsils, if rubbed on them.”[301]

The English name _Cricket_, the French _Cri-cri_, the Dutch _Krekel_, and the Welsh _Cricell_ and _Cricella_, are evidently derived from the _creak_-ing sounds of these insects.

Gryllidæ--Grasshoppers.

Mr. Hughes, after describing an ash-colored Grasshopper (which may be his ash-colored cricket before mentioned),[302] remarks that the superstitious of the inhabitants of Barbados are very apprehensive of some approaching illness to the family, whenever this insect flies into their houses in the evening or in the night.[303]

Athenæus tells us the ancient Greeks used to eat the common Grasshopper and the Monkey-grasshopper as provocatives of the appetite. Aristophanes says:

How can you, in God’s name, like Grasshoppers,
Catching them with a reed, and Cercopes?[304]

Turpin tells us there is a kind of brown Grasshopper in Siam, which the natives consider a delicate food.[305]

“Fernandus Oniedus declareth furthermore,” says Peter Martyr in his History of the West Indies, “that in a certain region called Zenu, lying fourescore and tenne miles from Darrina Eastwarde, they exercise a strange kinde of marchaundize: For in the houses of the inhabitantes they found great chests and baskets, made of twigges and leaves of certaine trees apt for that purpose, being all ful of Grasshoppers, Grilles, Crabbes, Crefishes, Snails also, and Locustes, which destroie the fields of corne, all well dried and salted. Being demanded why they reserved such a multitude of these beastes: they answered, that they kept them to be sowlde (sold) to the borderors, which dwell further within the lande, and that for the exchange of these pretious birdes, and salted fishes, they received of them certayne straunge thinges, wherein partly they take pleasure, and partly use them for the necessarie affaires.”[306]

In the account of the voyages of J. Huighen Linschoten, it is stated that the inhabitants of Cumana eat “horse-leeches, bats, Grasshoppers, spiders, bees, and raw, sodden, and roasted lice. They spare no living creature whatsoever, but they eat it.”[307]

“Among the choice delicacies with which the California Digger Indians regale themselves during the summer season,” says the Empire County Argus, “is the Grasshopper roast. Having been an eye-witness to the preparation and discussion of one of their feasts of Grasshoppers, we can describe it truthfully. There are districts in California, as well as portions of the plains between Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, that literally swarm with Grasshoppers, and in such astonishing numbers that a man cannot put his foot to the ground, while walking there, without crushing great numbers. To the Indian they are a delicacy, and are caught and cooked in the following manner: A piece of ground is sought where they most abound, in the center of which an excavation is made, large and deep enough to prevent the insect from hopping out when once in. The entire party of Diggers, old and young, male and female, then surround as much of the adjoining grounds as they can, and each with a green bough in hand, whipping and thrashing on every side, gradually approach the center, driving the insects before them in countless multitudes, till at last all, or nearly all, are secured in the pit. In the mean time smaller excavations are made, answering the purpose of ovens, in which fires are kindled and kept up till the surrounding earth, for a short distance, becomes sufficiently heated, together with a flat stone, large enough to cover the oven. The Grasshoppers are now taken in coarse bags, and, after being thoroughly soaked in salt water for a few moments, are emptied into the oven and closed in. Ten or fifteen minutes suffice to roast them, when they are taken out and eaten without further preparation, and with much apparent relish, or, as is sometimes the case, reduced to powder and made into soup. And having from curiosity tasted, not of the soup, but of the roast, really, if one could divest himself of the idea of eating an insect as we do an oyster or shrimp, without other preparation than simple roasting, they would not be considered very bad eating, even by more refined epicures than the Digger Indians.”[308]

An item dated Tuesday, Aug. 21st, 1742, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, states: “Great damage has been done to the pastures in the country, particularly about Bristol, by swarms of Grasshoppers; the like has happened in Pennsylvania to a surprising degree.”[309]

A common species in Sweden, the _Decticus verrucivorus_, is employed by the native peasants to bite the warts on their hands; the black fluid which it emits from its mouth being supposed to possess the power of making these excrescences vanish.[310] This black fluid, from whatever Grasshoppers it may be emitted, is called by our boys “tobacco spit,” which it much resembles; and they attribute to it also a wart-curing quality. When they catch one, they hold it between the thumb and fore-finger, and cry out,--

Spit, spit tobacco spit,
And then I’ll let you go.

The exuviæ of a Grasshopper called _Semmi_ or _Sebi_, Kempfer tells us, are preserved for medicinal uses, and sold publicly in shops both in Japan and China.[311]

Dr. James, quoting Dioscorides, says: “Grasshoppers (_Locusta Anglica minor, vulgatissima_, Raii _Ins._ 60.) in a suffumigation relieve under a dysury, especially such as is incident to the female sex. The Locusta Africanus is a very good antidote against the poison of the Scorpion.”[312]

After describing the Grasshopper of Italy, Brookes says: “It is often an amusement among the children of that country to catch this animal; and, by tickling the belly with their finger, it will whistle as long as they chuse to make it.”[313]

In France, Grasshoppers are called _Sauterelles_, Hoppers; and in Germany, _Heupferde_, Hay-horses, because they generally feed on grasses, and their head has something of the form of a horse’s head.

If Grasshoppers appear early in the summer in great numbers, they foretell famine and drouth,--a superstition obtaining in Maryland.

Locustidæ--Locusts.

Moufet says: “That Locusts should be generated of the carkasse of a mule or asse (as Plutarch reports in the life of Cleonides) by putrefaction, I cannot with philosophers determine; first, because it was permitted to the Jewes to feed on them; secondly, because no man ever yet was an eye-witness of such a putrid and ignoble generation of Locusts.”[314]

The first record of the ravages of the Locusts, which we find in history, is the account in the Book of Exodus of the visitation to the land of Egypt. “And the Locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt--very grievous were they.... For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.”[315]

It is to the Bible, too, we go to find the best account, for correctness and sublimity, of the appearance and ravages of these terrific insects. It is thus given by the prophet Joel: “A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth; the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. Like the noise of chariots[316] on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their faces the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war, and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks; neither shall one thrust another, they shall walk every one in his path; and when they fall upon the sword they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them, the heavens shall tremble; the sun[317] and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.” The usual way in which they are destroyed is also noticed by the prophet. “I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face towards the east sea, and his hinder part towards the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, because he hath done great things.”[318]

Paulus Orosius tells us that in the year of the world 3800, during the consulship of M. Plautius Hypsæus, and M. Fulvius Flaccus, such infinite myriads of Locusts were blown from the coast of Africa into the sea and drowned, that being cast upon the shore in immense heaps they emitted a stench greater than could have been produced by the carcasses of one hundred thousand men. A general pestilence of all living creatures followed. And so great was this plague in Numidia, where Micipsa was king, that eighty thousand persons died; and on the sea-coast, near Carthage and Utica, about two hundred thousand were reported to have perished. Thirty thousand soldiers, appointed as the garrison of Africa, and stationed in Utica, were among the number. So violent was the destruction that the bodies of more than fifteen hundred of these soldiers, from one gate of the city, were carried and buried in the same day.[319]

St. Augustine also mentions a plague to have arisen in Africa from the same cause, which destroyed no less than eight hundred thousand persons (_octigenta hominum millia_) in the kingdom of Masanissa alone, and many more in the territories bordering upon the sea.[320]

Blown from that quarter of the globe, Locusts have occasionally visited both Italy and Spain. The former country was severely ravaged by myriads of these desolating intruders, in the year 591. These were of a larger size than common, as we are informed by Mouffet, who quotes an ancient historian; and from their stench, when cast into the sea, arose a pestilence which carried off near a million of men and cattle.[321]

In A.D. 677, Syria and Mesopotamia were overrun by Locusts.[322]

“About the year of our Lord 872,” we read in Wanley’s Wonders, “came into France such an innumerable company of Locusts, that the number of them darkened the very light of the sun; they were of extraordinary bigness, had a sixfold order of wings, six feet, and two teeth, the hardness whereof surpassed that of stone. These eat up every green thing in all the fields of France. At last, by the force of the winds, they were carried into the sea (the Baltic) and there drowned; after which, by the agitation of the waves, the dead bodies of them were cast upon the shores, and from the stench of them (together with the famine they had made with their former devouring) there arose so great a plague, that it is verily thought every third person in France died of it.”[323] These Locusts devoured in France, on an average every day, one hundred and forty acres; and their daily marches, or distances of flight, were computed at twenty miles.[324]

In 1271, all the cornfields of Milan were destroyed; and in the year 1339, all those of Lombardy.[325] We read in Bateman’s Doome, that in 1476, “grasshoppers and the great rising of the river Isula did spoyle al Poland.” A famine took place in the Venetian territory in 1478, occasioned by these terrific scourges, in which thirty thousand persons are reported to have perished. Mouffet mentions many other instances of their devastations in Europe,--in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany.[326]

A passage of Locusts in France, in 1613, entirely cut up, even to the very roots, more than fifteen thousand acres of corn in the neighborhood of Arles, and had even penetrated into the barns and granaries, when, as it were by Providence, many hundreds of birds, especially starlings, came to diminish their numbers. Notwithstanding this, nothing could be more astonishing than their multiplication, for the fecundity of the Locust is very remarkable. Upon an order issued by government, for the collection of their eggs, more than three thousand measures were collected, from each of which, it was calculated, would have issued nearly two millions of young ones.[327] In 1650, they entered Russia, in immense divisions, in three different places; thence passed over into Poland and Lithuania, where the air was darkened by their numbers. In many parts they lay dead to the depth of four feet. Sometimes they covered the surface of the earth like a dark cloud, loaded the trees, and the destruction which they produced exceeded all calculation.[328] In 1645, immense swarms visited the islands of Formosa and Tayowan, and caused such a famine that eight thousand persons died of hunger.[329]

“In 1649,” says Sir Hans Sloane, “the Locusts destroyed all the products of the island of Teneriffe. They came from the coast of Barbary, the wind being a Levant thence. They flew as far as they could, then one alighted in the sea, and another on it, so that one after another they made a heap as big as the greatest ship above water, and were esteemed almost as many under. Those above water, next day, after the sun’s refreshing them, took flight again, and came in clouds to the island, whence the inhabitants had perceived them in the air, and had gathered all the soldiers of the island and of Laguna together, being 7 or 8000 men, who laying aside their arms, some took bags, some spades, and having notice by their scouts from the hills when they alighted, they went straight thither, made trenches, and brought their bags full, and covered them with mould.... After two months fruitless management of them in this manner, the ecclesiastics took them in hand by penances, etc. But all would not do: the Locusts staid their four months; cattle eat them and died, and so did several men, and others stuck out in botches. The other Canary islands were so troubled, also, that they were forced to bury their provisions. They were troubled forty years before with the like calamity.”[330]

Barbot, after mentioning a famine that happened in North Guinea in 1681, which destroyed many thousands of the inhabitants of the Continent, and forced many to sell themselves for slaves, to only get sustenance, says these fearful famines are also some years occasioned by the dreadful swarms of Locusts, which come from the eastward and spread over the whole country in such prodigious multitudes, that they darken the very air, passing over head like mighty clouds. They leave nothing that is green wheresoever they come, either on the ground or trees, and fly so swiftly from place to place, that whole provinces are devastated in a very short time. Barbot adds, terrific storms of hail, wind, and such like judgments from Heaven, are nothing to compare to this, which when it happens, there is no question to be made but that multitudes of the natives must starve, having no neighboring countries to supply them with corn, because those round about them are no better husbands than themselves, and are no less liable to the same calamities.[331]

Of a swarm, which in the year 1693 covered four square miles of ground, a German author has made the following estimate. Observing that, when he trod on the ground, at least three were crushed, and that in a square German measure, less than an English foot, ten were destroyed; and after determining the number of these square measures in the four miles, he concluded that ninety-two billions, one hundred and sixty millions of Locusts were congregated on the surface. This is altogether a very moderate calculation, for not only is their number more compact in breadth, but they are often piled knee-high on the earth.[332]

In 1724, Dr. Shaw was a witness of the devastations of these insects in Barbary. He has given us a description of their habits.[333] For four successive years, from 1744 to 1747, Locusts ravaged the southern provinces of Spain and Portugal.[334] In a letter from Transylvania, dated August 22d, 1747, a graphic description is given of two vast columns that overswept that country. “They form,” says the writer, “a close compact column about fifteen yards deep, in breadth about four musket-shot, and in length about four leagues; they move with such force, or rather precipitation, that the air trembles to such a degree as to shake the leaves upon the trees, and they darkened the sky in such a manner, that when they passed over us I could not see my people at twenty feet distance.”[335] This flight was four hours in passing over the Red Tower. The guards here attempted to stop them, by firing cannon at them; and where, indeed, the balls and shot swept through the swarm, they gave way and divided; but, having filled up their ranks in a moment, they proceeded on their journey.[336] In an item dated Hermanstadt, July 24, 1748, it is stated that on the day before, a hussar, coming from the plague committee, saw such a host of these insects near Szanda, that they covered the country for a mile round, and were so thick, that he was obliged to dismount from his horse, and halt for three hours, until the inhabitants of the district, coming with all sorts of instruments, beat about and forced with loud cries these pests to quit the spot.[337] In another item, dated Warsaw, August 15, 1748, it is stated that a certain prince sent out soldiers against the Locusts, who fired upon them not only with small arms, but with cannons. They succeeded in dividing the Locusts, but unluckily with the noise frightened away the storks and cranes which daily consume many of these insects.[338] Some stragglers from these swarms which so desolated Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, Hungary, and Poland, in the years 1747 and ’48, made their way into England, where they caused some alarm.[339] During this grand invasion of Europe, they even crossed the Baltic, and visited Sweden in 1749. Charles the Twelfth, in Bessarabia, imagined himself, it is said, assailed by a hurricane, mingled with tremendous hail, when a cloud of these insects suddenly falling, and covering both men and horses, arrested his entire army in its march.[340]

During the devastations committed by the Locusts in Spain in 1754, ’55, ’56, and ’57, a body of them entered the church of Almaden, and devoured the silk garments that adorned the images of the saints, not sparing even the varnish on the altars.[341]

In 1750 and ’53 Poland was again devastated by Locusts.[342] In June, 1772, there were several swarms of “large black flies of the Locust kind,” that did incredible damage to the fruits of the earth, seen in England. Salt water, it is said, was found effectual in destroying them.[343]

From 1778 to 1780 the empire of Morocco was terribly devastated by Locusts: every green thing was eaten up, not even the bitter bark of the orange and pomegranate escaping--a most dreadful famine ensued. The poor wandered over the country, in search of a wretched subsistence from the roots of plants. They picked, from the dung of camels, the undigested grains of barley, and devoured them with eagerness. Vast numbers perished, and the streets and roads were strewed with the unburied carcasses. On this sad occasion, fathers sold their children, and husbands their wives. When they visit a country, says Mr. Jackson, from whom we have gathered the above facts, speaking of the same empire, it behooves every one to lay in provision for a famine, for they stay from three to seven years. When they have devoured all other vegetables, they attack the trees, consuming first the leaves and then the bark.[344]

To prevent the fatal consequences which would have resulted from a passage of Locusts in 1780 near Bontzhida, in Transylvania, fifteen hundred persons were ordered each to gather a sack full of the insects, part of which were crushed, part burned, and part interred. Notwithstanding this, very little diminution was remarked in their numbers, so astonishing was their multiplication, until very cold and sharp weather had come on. In the following spring there were millions of eggs disinterred and destroyed by the people, who were levied “en masse” for the operation; but notwithstanding all this, many places of tolerable extent were still to be found, in which the soil was covered with young Locusts, so that not a single spot was left naked. These were finally, however, swept into ditches, the opposite sides of which were provided with cloths tightly stretched, and crushed.[345]

When the provincial governors of Spain are informed in the spring that Locusts have been seen, they collect the soldiers and peasants, divide them into companies and surround the district. Every man is furnished with a long broom, with which he strikes the ground, and thus drives the young Locusts toward a common center, where a vast excavation, with a quantity of brushwood, is prepared for their reception, and where the flame destroys them. Three thousand men were thus employed, in 1780, for three weeks, at Zamora; and it was reckoned that the quantity collected exceeded 10,000 bushels.[346] In 1783, 400 bushels more were collected and destroyed in the same way.[347]

Mr. Barrow informs us that in South Africa, in 1784 and 1797, two thousand square miles were literally covered by Locusts, which, being carried into the sea by a northwest wind, formed, for fifty miles along shore, a bank three or four feet high; and when the wind was in the opposite point, the horrible odor which they exhaled was perceptible a hundred and fifty miles off.[348]

The immense column of Locusts which ravaged all the Mahratta territory, and was thought to have come from Arabia, extended, Mr. Kirby’s friend told him, five hundred miles, and was so dense as thoroughly to hide the sun, and prevent any object from casting a shadow. This horde was not composed of the migratory Locust, but of a red species, which imparted a sanguine color to the trees on which they settled.[349]

Mr. Forbes describes a flight of Locusts which he saw soon after his arrival at Baroche in 1779. It was more than a mile in length, and half as much in breadth, and appeared, as the sun was in the meridian, like a black cloud at a distance. As it approached, its density obscured the solar rays, causing a gloom like that of an eclipse, over the gardens, and causing a noise like the rushing of a torrent. They were almost an hour in passing a given point.[350]

In another place, this traveler states that, in one considerable tract near the confines of the Brodera district, he witnessed a mournful scene, occasioned by a scourge of Locusts. They had, some time before he came, alighted in that part of the country, and left behind them, he says, “an awful contrast to the general beauty of that earthly paradise.” The sad description of Hosea, he adds, was literally realized: “That which the palmer-worm hath left, hath the caterpillar eaten. They have laid waste the vine, and barked the fig-tree; they have made it clean bare, and the branches thereof are made white: the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered. Howl, O ye husbandmen! for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate!”[351]

On the 16th of May, 1800, Buchanan met with in Mysore a flight of Locusts which extended in length about three miles. He compares the noise they made to the sound of a cataract.[352] This swarm was very destructive to the young crops of jola.[353]

In 1811, at Smyrna, at right angles to a flight of Locusts, a man rode forty miles before he got rid of the moving column. This immense flight continued for three days and nights, apparently without intermission. It was computed that the lowest number of Locusts in this swarm must have exceeded 168,608,563,200,200! Captain Beaufort determined that the Locusts of this flight, which he himself saw, if framed into a heap, would have exceeded in magnitude more than a thousand and thirty times the largest pyramid of Egypt; or if put on the ground close together, in a band of a mile and an eighth in width, would have encircled the globe! This immense swarm caused such a famine in the district of Marwar, that the natives fled for subsistence in a living torrent into Guzerat and Bombay; and out of every hundred of these Marwarees, Captain Carnac estimates, ninety-nine died that year! Near the town of Baroda, these poor people perished at the rate of five hundred a day; and at Ahmedabad, a large city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, one hundred thousand died from this awful visitation![354]

In 1816, Captain Riley met with a flight of Locusts in the north of Africa, which extended in length about eight miles, and in breadth three. He tells us, also, he was informed that several years before he came to Mogadore, nearly all the Locusts in the empire, which at that time were very numerous, and had laid waste the country, were carried off in one night, and drowned in the Atlantic Ocean: that their dead carcasses a few days afterward were driven by winds and currents on shore, all along the western coast, extending from near Cape Spartel to beyond Mogadore, forming in many places immense piles on the beach: that the stench arising from their remains was intolerable, and was supposed to have produced the plague which broke out about that time in various parts of the Moorish dominions.[355] Before this plague in 1799, Mr. Jackson tells us, from Mogadore to Tangier the face of the earth was covered by them, and relates the following singular incident which occurred at El Araiche: The whole region from the confines of the Sahara was ravaged by the Locusts; but on the other side of the river El Kos not one of them was to be seen, though there was nothing to prevent their flying over it. Till then they had proceeded northward; but upon arriving at its banks they turned to the east, so that all the country north of El Araiche was full of pulse, fruits and grain, exhibiting a most striking contrast to the desolation of the adjoining district. At length they were all carried by a violent hurricane into the Western Ocean; the shore, as in former instances, was covered by their carcasses, and a pestilence (confirming the statement, and verifying the supposition of Captain Riley) was caused by the horrid stench which they emitted: but when this evil ceased, their devastations were followed by a most abundant crop.[356]

In 1825 the Russian empire was overrun to a very alarming extent by young Locusts. About Kiew, as far as the eye could reach, they lay piled up one upon another to the height of two feet. Through the government of Ekatharinoslaw and Cherson to the Black Sea, a distance of about 400 miles, they covered the ground so thickly that a horse could not walk fast through them. The sight of such an immense number, says an eye-witness, Mr. Jaeger, of the most destructive and rapacious insects, justly occasioned a melancholy foreboding of famine and pestilence, in case they should invade the cultivated and populous countries of Russia and Poland. It was at this juncture, however, that the Emperor Alexander sent his army of thirty thousand soldiers to destroy them. These forming a line of several hundred miles, and advancing toward the south, attacked them with shovels, and collected them, as far as possible, in sacks and burned them. This is the largest army of soldiers sent against Locusts we have any record of.[357]

In 1824, Locusts made their appearance at the Glen-Lynden Colony in South Africa, being the first time they had been seen there since 1808. In 1825, they continued to advance from the north; in 1826, the corn crops at Glen-Lynden were totally destroyed by them; and in 1827, 1828, and 1829, they extended their ravages through the whole of the northern and southern districts of the colony. In 1830, they again disappeared.[358]

The following graphic description of the swarm that visited Glen-Lynden in 1825 is from the pen of Mr. Pringle. He says: “In returning to Glen-Lynden, we passed through a flying swarm, which had exactly the appearance, as it approached, of a vast snow-cloud hanging on the slope of a mountain from which the snow was falling in very large flakes. When we got into the midst of them, the air all around and above was darkened as by a thick cloud; and the rushing sound of the wings of the millions of these insects was as loud as the dash of a mill-wheel.... The column that we thus passed through was, as nearly as I could calculate, about half a mile in breadth, and from two to three miles in length.”[359]

In 1835, a plague of Locusts made their appearance in China, in the neighborhood of Quangse, and in the western departments of Quangtung. The military and people were ordered out to exterminate them, as they had done two years before. A more rational mode, however, was adopted by the authorities, of offering a bounty of twelve or fifteen cash per catty of the insects. They were gathered so fast for this price, that it was immediately lowered to five or six cash per catty. A strike followed, and the Locusts were left in quiet to do as much damage as they could.[360]

Nieuhoff tells us, Locusts in the East Indies are so destructive that the inhabitants are oftentimes obliged to change their habitations, for want of sustenance. He adds that this has frequently happened in China and the Island of Tojowac.[361]

In 1828-9, in the provinces lying between the Black and Caspian Seas, Locusts appeared in such vast numbers as were never seen in that country before.[362]

In 1839, Kaffraria was again visited by Locusts, which, together with the war at that time, caused so great a famine that many persons perished for want of subsistence.[363] Again in 1849-50, this country was visited by this dreadful scourge. The whole country, says the Rev. Francis Fleming, was covered with them; and when they arose, the cloud was so dense that this gentleman was obliged to dismount, and wait till they passed over.[364]

Mr. Jules Remy says, that at his arrival at Salt Lake, he observed upon the shore, on the top of the salt, a deposit of a foot deep which was entirely composed of dead Locusts--_Œdipoda corallipes_. These insects, driven by a high wind in prodigiously thick clouds, had been drowned in the lake, after having, during the course of the summer (of 1855), destroyed the rising crops, and even the prairie grass. A famine ensued; but the Mormons, continues Mr. Remy, only saw in this scourge a fresh proof of the truth of their religion, because it had happened, as among the Israelites, in the seventh year after their settlement in the country.[365]

According to Lieutenant Warren, whose graphic description is here borrowed, these devastating insects of our great western plains are “nearly the same as the Locusts of Egypt; and no one,” continues this officer, “who has not traveled on the prairie, and seen for himself, can appreciate the magnitude of the swarms. Often they fill the air for many miles in extent, so that an inexperienced eye can scarcely distinguish their appearance from that of a shower of rain or the smoke of a prairie fire. The height of their flight may be somewhat appreciated, as Mr. Evans saw them above his head, as far as their size would render them visible, while standing on the top of a peak of the Rocky Mountains 8500 feet above the plain, and an elevation of 14,500 above that of the sea, in the region where the snow lies all the year. To a person standing in one of the swarms as they pass over and around him, the air becomes sensibly darkened, and the sound produced by their wings resembles that of the passage of a train of cars on a railroad, when standing two or three hundred yards from the track. The Mormon settlements have suffered more from the ravages of these insects than probably all other causes combined. They destroyed nearly all the vegetables cultivated last year at Fort Randall, and extended their ravages east as far as Iowa.”[366]

The Mormons, in their simple and picturesque descriptions, say that these insects (“Crickets”--_Œdipoda corallipes_, Haldemars) are the produce of “a cross between the Spider and the Buffalo.”[367]

In Egypt, in 1843, the popular idea was that the hordes of Locusts, which were then ravaging the land, were sent by the comet observed about that time for twelve days in the southwest.[368]

Pliny, in the words of his translator, Holland, says: “Many a time have the Locusts been knowne to take their flight out of Affricke, and with whole armies to infest Italie: many a time have the people of Rome, fearing a great famine and scarcity toward, beene forced to have recourse unto Sybil’s bookes for remedie, and to avert the ire of the gods. In the Cyrenaick region within Barbarie, ordained it is by law, every three years to wage warre against them, and so to conquer them.... Yea, and a grievous punishment lieth upon him that is negligent in this behalf, as if hee were a traitour to his prince and countrey. Moreover, within the Island Lemnos there is a certaine proportion and measure set down, how many and what quantity every man shall kill; and they are to exhibit unto the magistrate a just and true account thereof, and namely, to shew what measure full of dead Locusts. And for this purpose they make much of Iaies, Dawes, and Choughs, whom they do honour highly, because they doe flie opposite against the Locusts, and so destroy them. Moreover in Syria, they are forced to levie a warlike power of men against them, and to make ridance by that means.”[369]

Democritus says, if a cloud of Locusts is coming forward, let all persons remain quiet within doors, and they will pass over the place; but if they suddenly arrive before they are observed, they will hurt nothing, if you boil bitter lupines, or wild cucumbers, in brine, and sprinkle it, for they will immediately die. They will likewise pass over the subjacent spot, continues Democritus, if you catch some bats and tie them on the high trees of the place; and if you take and burn some of the Locusts, they are rendered torpid from the smell, and some indeed die, and some drooping their wings, await their pursuers, and they are destroyed by the sun. You will drive away Locusts, continues this same writer, if you prepare some liquor for them, and dig trenches, and besprinkle them with the liquor; for if you come there afterward, you will find them oppressed with sleep; but how you are to destroy them is to be your concern. A Locust will touch nothing, he concludes, if you pound absinthium, or a leek, or centaury with water, and sprinkle it.[370]

Didymus says, to preserve vines from that species of Locusts called by the ancients _Bruchus_, set three grains of mustard around the stem of the vine at the root; for these being thus set, have the power of destroying the Bruchus.[371]

Nieuhoff tells us that when a swarm of Locusts is seen in China, the inhabitants, to prevent their alighting, “march to and again the fields with their colors flying, shouting and hallooing all the while; never leaving them till they are driven into the sea, or some river, where they fall down and are drowned.”[372]

Volney says, that when the Locusts first make their appearance on the frontiers of Syria, the inhabitants strive to drive them off by raising large clouds of smoke; and if, as it too frequently happens, their herbs and wet straw fail them, they dig trenches, in which they bury them in great numbers. The most efficacious destroyers of these insects are, however, he adds, the south and southeasterly winds, and the bird called the Samarmar.[373]

Capt. Riley tells us, it is said at Mogadore, and believed by the Moors, Christians, and Jews, that the Bereberies inhabiting the Atlas Mountains have the power to destroy every flight of Locusts that comes from the south, and from the east, and thus ward off this scourge from all the countries north and west of this stupendous ridge, merely by building large fires on the parts of the mountains over which the Locusts are known always to pass, and in the season when they are likely to appear, which is at a definite period, within a certain number of days in almost every year. The Atlas being high, and the peaks covered with snow, these insects become chilled in passing over them, when, seeing the fires, they are attracted by the glare, and plunge into the flame. What degree of credit ought to be attached to this opinion, Capt. Riley says he does not know, but is certain that the Moorish Sultan used to pay a considerable sum of money yearly to certain inhabitants of the sides of the Atlas, in order to keep the Locusts out of his dominions. He also adds, the Moors and Jews affirmed to him, that during the time in which the Sultan paid the said yearly stipend punctually, not a Locust was to be seen in his dominions; but that when the Emperor refused to pay the stipulated sum, because no Locusts troubled his country, and thinking he had been imposed upon, that the very same year the Locusts again made their appearance, and have continued to lay waste the country ever since.[374]

An impostor, who is believed to have been a French adventurer, at one time, it is said, endeavored to persuade the people of Morocco that he could destroy all the Locusts by a chemical process.[375]

The superstitious Tartars of the Crimea, in order to rid their country of its most destructive enemy, the Locusts, at one time sent over to Asia Minor, whence these insects had come, to procure Dervises to drive them away by their incantations, etc. These divines prayed around the mosques, and, as a charm, ordered water to be hung out on the minarets, which, with the prayers, were meant to entice a species of blackbird to come in multitudes and devour the Locusts! The water thus hung out is said to be still preserved in the mosques. On this occasion, the Dervises collected eighty thousand rubles, the poorest shepherd giving half a ruble.[376]

We read in “Purchas’s Pilgrims,” of Locusts being exorcised and excommunicated, so that they immediately flew away![377] From this interesting collection the following is clipped: “In the yeere 1603, at Fremona, great misery happened by Grasse-hoppers, from which Paez freed the Catholikes, by Letanies and sprinkling the Fields with Holy-water; when as the Fields of Heretikes, seuered only by a Ditch, were spoyled by them. Yea, a Heretike vsing this sacred sprinkling, preserued his corne, which, to a Catholike neglecting in one Field, was lost, and preserued in another by that couiured aspersion (so neere of kinne are these Locusts to the Deuill, which is said to hate Holy-water).”[378]

In the south of Europe rewards are offered for the collection both of the Locusts and their eggs; and at Marseilles, it is on record that, in the year 1613, 20,000 francs were paid for this purpose. In 1825, the same city paid a sum of 6200 francs for destroying these pests to agriculture.[379] We read in the eighty-first volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine, that most of the Agricultural Societies of Italy have offered premiums for the best method of destroying Locusts: that in many districts several thousand persons are employed in searching for the eggs; that in four days the inhabitants of the district of Ofanto collected at one time 80,000 sacks full, which were thrown into the river.[380]

The noise Locusts make when engaged in the work of destruction has been compared to the sound of a flame of fire driven by the wind, and the effect of their bite to that of fire.[381] Volney says: “The noise they make, in browsing on the trees and herbage, may be heard at a great distance, and resembles that of an army foraging in secret.” His following sentence may also be introduced here: “The Tartars themselves are a less destructive enemy than these little animals.”[382] Robbins compares their noise to that of small pigs when eating corn.[383] The noise produced by their flight and approach, the poet Southey has strikingly described:

Onward they came a dark continuous cloud
Of congregated myriads numberless,
The rushing of whose wings was as the sound
Of a broad river headlong in its course
Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar
Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm,
Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks![384]

Another comparison may be introduced here, to give some idea of the infinite numbers of these insects. Dr. Clarke compares a cloud of them to a flight of snow when the flakes are carried obliquely by the wind. They covered his carriage and horses, and the Tartars assert that people are sometimes suffocated by them. The whole face of nature might have been described as covered with a living veil. They consisted of two species--_Locusta tartarica_ and _L. migratoria_; the first is almost twice the size of the second, and, because it precedes it, is called by the Tartars the herald or messenger.[385]

In the Account of the admirable Voyage of Domingo Gonsales, the little Spaniard, to the World of the Moon, by Help of several Gansa’s, or large Geese, we find the following: “One accident more befel me worth mention, that during my stay, I say, I saw a kind of a reddish cloud coming toward me, and continually approaching nearer, which, at last, I perceived, was nothing but a huge swarm of Locusts. He that reads the discources of learned men concerning them (as John Leo, of Africa, and others, who relate that they are seen for several days in the air before they fall on the earth), and adds thereto this experience of mine, will easily conclude that they can come from no other place than the globe of the moon.”[386]

To accompany this piece of satire, the following suits well:

A Chinese author, quoted by Rev. Thomas Smith, observes, that Locusts never appear in China but when great floods are followed by a very dry season; and that it is his opinion that they are hatched by the sun from the spawn of fish left by the waters on the ground![387]

So far the history of the Locust has been but a series of the greatest calamities which human nature has suffered--famine, pestilence, and death. No wonder that, in all ages and times, these insects have so deeply impressed the imagination, that almost all people have looked on them with superstitious horror. We have shown how that their devastations have entered into the history of nations. Their effigies, too, like those of other conquerors of the earth, have been perpetuated in coins.

We are the army of the great God, and we lay ninety-and-nine eggs; were the hundredth put forth, the world would be ours--such is the speech the Arabs put into the mouth of the Locust. And such is the feeling the Arabs entertain of this insect, that they give it a remarkable pedigree, and the following description of its person: It has the head of the horse, the horns of the stag, the eye of the elephant, the neck of the ox, the breast of the lion, the body of the scorpion, the hip of the camel, the legs of the stork, the wings of the eagle, and the tail of the dragon.[388]

The Mohammedans say, that after God had created man from clay, of that which was left he made the Locust: and in utter despair, they look upon this devastating scourge as a just chastisement from heaven for their or their nation’s sins, or as directed by that fatality in which they all believe.[389]

The wings of some Locusts being spotted, were thought by many to be leaves from the book of fate, in which letters announcing the destiny of nations were to be read. Paul Jetzote, professor of Greek literature at the Gymnasium of Stettin, wrote a work on the meaning of three of these letters, which were, according to him, to be seen on the wings of those Locusts which visited Silesia in 1712. These letters were B. E. S., and formed the initials of the Latin words “Bella Erunt Sæva,” or “Babel Est Solitudo;” also the German words, “Bedeutet Erschreckliche Schlacten,” portending frightful battles, “Bedeutet und Erfreuliche Siege,” portending happy victories. There are Greek and Hebrew sentences likewise, in which, no doubt, the professor showed as much learning, judgment, and spirit of prophecy as in those already quoted.[390]

A quite common belief in our own country is, that every Locust’s wing is marked with either the letter W, portending War, or the letter P, portending Peace.

Not content with the dreadful presence of this plague, the inhabitants of most countries took that opportunity of adding to their present misery by prognosticating future evils. The direction of their flight pointed out the kingdom doomed to bow under the divine wrath. The color of the insect designated the national uniform of such armies as were to go forth and conquer.[391]

Aldrovandus states, on the authority of Cruntz, that Tamerlane’s army being infested by Locusts, that chief looked on it as a warning from God, and desisted from his designs on Jerusalem.[392]

Mouffet says: “If any credit may be given to Apomasaris, a man most learned in the learning of the Indians, Persians, and Egyptians, to dream of the coming of Locusts is a sign of an army coming against us, and so much as they shall seem to hurt or not hurt us, so shall the enemy.”[393]