The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1868-07-16
THE ANCIENT LOCUST.

The insect commonly known among us
as the Seventeen Year Locust is ma
king its appearance in large numbers
Newman's Entomology has an interesting
history of the Locust from which we Gull
the following. The Locust here described,
and found on the Eastern Continent,
appears TO differ somewhat from the Amcri-
can species:
The locust, from the remotest ages. has
had a greater power to injure man than
any other living creature. Its course is
almost invariably accompanied with IA
mine and pestilence; man is armed with
no power to resist it.
The locust was sent as plague to the
Egyptians especially to punish them for
the detention and oppression of the Israel
e5; +; the whole face Of the country was
covered by their multitudes.
Afterwards, about the date b. G. 200,
we have it on record, that locusts again
swarmed in the same part of Africa.
St. Augustine mentions another enor-
nous swarm in the same region, which
deyoured every green leaf, and eventually
reaching the Sea, nerished by drowning
and the mass of their corrupted. bodies
created so great stencil that a pcsti,ence
ensued, which carried of nearly million
human beings.
In 1873 the Venetian territory was
visited by a swarm Of locusts, which so
completely destroyed the crops IS to cause
a famine, in which more than thirty
thousand persons died of starvation.
In 1850 a swarm of locusts entered
Russia. As they passed lie air was
darkened by their numbers they covered
the face Of the earth the trees bent with
their weight; and in places the mass of
their dead bodies was four feet in depth.
In l748 a swarm of locusts visited the
Austrian dominiUus at Vienna the
breadth of the swarm exceeded three
miles, and so darEencd the air that one
person could not see another at the dis
tance of twenty PAGES.
Major Moor witnessed in the Mahrattas
the ravages Of a swarm of locusts, that
was five hundred miles in length, and so
compact as TO completely hide the sun and
occasion darkness.
BIr. Barrow relates that in Southern
Africa, In the years 1884 and 1907, 4
swarm Of locusts covered an area Of nearly
two thousand square miles. When driven
by northwest wind into the sea, they
formed upon the shore, for fifty miles,
bank three or four feet high: the stencil
from their purifying bodies was percepti
ble at the distance of one hundred and
fifty miles.
In l7T6 and 1880 a swarm of locusts
visited Morocco every green thing was
eaten, and dreadful famine ensuing,
such vast numbers of people died of hun
ger in the streets Of the town that their
bodies lay unburied.
The egg Of the locust is deposited in
the ground when it is Matched it has all
the appearance of locust in miniature,
except that it is without wings. Its work
of destruction Immediately commences; ii
devours every green blade Of grass and
every geeen leaf that it can obtain.
In the autumn it assumes the winged
state, and then my,iads assemble, and
having stripped the earth of its mantle Of
green rise in the air and are driven by the
wind, carrying with them destruction,
famine and pestilence.
The shape and appearance of the locust
is that of our commonest grasshopper, but
il greately exceeds shat insect in size; it
leaps with ease and agility, but, excepting
in IFS migrations, does not readily fly.
The jaws of the locust are excessively
hard and strong, capable of devouring not
only the leaves, but when these fail, the
bark and even the solid wood Of the trees.
The sound of their feeding, when iii
swarms, is as the rushing of flames
driven by the wind.
Happily in this country the locust is
very rare it has occasionally Iean driven
here by winds, but has never been know
to breed here. In the year 1748 con-
siderable number were observed, but not
enough TO do any serious injury.