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 Gryllus of Linnaeus. They have coloured elytra, 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 thorax is capacious, to afford room for the powerful muscles of the wings, and is marked in many species with one or more crests or wart-like prominences. The locusts fly by starts, but frequentlj: 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 of decomposing bodies is so great that the air becomes poisoned by the fetid exhalations. The 2d chapter of Joel gives a powerful description of the devastation committed by these destructive insects. M. Miot, in his translation of Hero dot us, has given it as his opinion that the heaps of bodies of winged serpents which that historian states that he saw in Egypt were nothing more than ma es of this species of locust. These insects are eaten in various parts of Africa, where the inhabitants collect them both for home consumption and for commerce. They take away their elytra and wings, and preserve them ni brine. One species (Acridium migratorium, Latr.) occasionally commits devastations in the south of Europe and Poland; and stragglers have occasionally reached our own coasts. In the United States the term " locust " is applied to a species of Cicada, which by their numbers and voracity are almost as destructive as the true locusts of the old world. [s. 690]