Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

We find by our exchange papers, that the Locusts made their regular septemdecennial appearance in different parts of the country, with great regularity, on the 25th inst. and although we have seen nothing of them in this city, as yet, we have no reason to expect that they will delay their coming. Their visits in this country have thus far been comparatively harmless, when we consider the well authenticated accounts of their ravages in the Eastern world; yet it is asserted that during their previous visits in some parts of New England, they not only ate up the grass in the fields, but actually attacked clothing and fences to appease their hunger.
In Syria, Egypt, and nearly all the South of Asia, they make their appearance in immense and innumerable swarms, directed in their flight by a leader, whose course they are said to follow with great exactness. They are, almost invariably, the precursors of a famine, in the counties, we have mentioned; as, to pass over whole provinces, and leave them but barren wastes, is to them but the work of a few hours. Their bite is considered poisonous to vegetation, so that they almost invariably destroy the life of the little that their wants suffer them to leave undevoured.
In 1797, according to Barrow, Southern Africa was visited by them in such quantities, that according to the account given by him, they covered an area of 2000 square miles-while the water of a very wide river which lay in their course, was so covered with the dead carcasses that floated on its surface, that its water was hardly visible. They were finally destroyed [as they invariably are by a tempestuous wind, which drove them into the sea; and when they were afterwards washed upon the shore, they made a bank four feet high, and fifty miles in length.
The Journal of Commerce cites Pallas’ travels in Russia, as giving a minute description of their progress in that country. He says after getting started in the morning, they do not halt until evening, but proceed, without touching each other, at little distance, uniformly in the same course, frequently “at the rate of a hundred fathoms a day, until they acquire wings, when they progressively disperse, but still fly about in large swarms.” In 1650, they entered Russia in three different places, and afterwards spread themselves over Poland and Lithuania. In 1678, 30,000 persons are said to have perished in the Venetinn territory, in consequence of a famine occasioned by their ravages. And it is stated in Irby and Mangle’s travels in Egypt and Syria, that they almost annually pass the southern extremity of the Dead sea, on their way to Gaza. They visited Great Britain in 1788, but disappeared without propagating.
It is well known that in Southern Africa, they are eaten by both men and beasts-and prepared for the palate of the former by being stripped of their wings and legs, and then roasted and pulverized.