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]
We now turn to the history of the Locust as an article of food--a striking benefit directly derived from insects. For as they are the greatest destroyers of food, so as some recompense they furnish a considerable supply of it to numerous nations--as they cause, they are frequently the means of preventing famines. They are recorded to have done this from the remotest antiquity.
In the curious account given by Alexis of a poor Athenian family's provisions, mention of this insect is found:
For our best and daintiest cheer, Through the bright half of the year, Is but acorns, onions, peas, Ochros, lupines, radishes, Vetches, wild pears nine and ten, With a Locust now and then.[394]
Diodorus Siculus, who lived about threescore years before our Saviour's birth, first, if I mistake not, described the Acridophagi, or Locust-eaters, of Ethiopia. He says they are smaller than other men, of lean and meager bodies, and exceeding black: that in the spring the south winds rise high, and drive an infinite number of Locusts out of the desert, of an extraordinary bigness, furnished with most dirty and nasty colored wings; and these are plentiful food and provision for them all their days. This historian has also given us an account of their peculiar mode of catching these insects: In their country there is a large and deep vale, extending far in length for many furlongs together: all over this they lay heaps of wood and other combustible material, and when the swarms of Locusts are driven thither by the force of the winds, then some of the inhabitants go to one part of the valley, and some to another, and set the grass and other combustible matter on fire, which was before thrown among the piles; whereupon arises a great and suffocating smoke, which so stifles the Locusts as they fly over the vale, that they soon fall down dead to the ground. This destruction of them, he continues, is continued for many days together, so that they lie in great heaps; and the country being full of salt, they gather these heaps together, and season them sufficiently with this salt, which gives them an excellent relish, and preserves them a long time sweet, so that they have food from these insects all the year round.