LOCUST

From the Latin word signifying a crayfish; but now the common name of a species of insects, forming a group or subgenus of the Gnj/lus of Linn.TUs. They have coloured ehtra, and large wings, disposed when at rest in Straight fan-like folds, as in other Orthoptera, and frequently exhibiting bright blue, green, or red colours. The thoraxcles of the is capacious,wings, andtoisatl'ord marked room in many for the species powerful with mus-one or more crests or wart-like prominences. The locusts fly by starts, but frequently rise to a considerable height. Certain species, called "migratory locusts," unite In incalculable numbers, and emigrate, resembling in their pa age through the air a dense cloud: wherever they alight all signs of vegetation quickly disappear, and cultivated grounds are left a desert. But the mischief does not end here; for when dead the ma ctf decomposing rest that the air becomes poisoned by the fetid exhalations. The 2d chapter of Joel gives a powerful description of the devastation comM. Miot.mit ted by these in his destructive translation insert-;.of BerodotUS, baa given it as his opinion that the heaps of bodies of winged ser|>ents which that historian states that he saw in Egypt, were nothing more than ma es of this sp. These •• eaten in various parts of Africa, where the in habitants collect them both for home consumption and for commerce. They take away their elytra and wings, and preserve them in brine. Ono species {Jteridimm taigratoriun, Latr.) occasionally commits devastations in the.-outh of Europe and Poland; and stragglers have occasionally reached our own coasts. In the United States the term " loetHtV is applied to a special at Cicada, which by their numbers and voracity arc almost as destructive as the true locusts of the old world. [s. 695]