We read in “Purchas’s Pilgrims,” of Locusts being exorcised and excommunicated, so that they immediately flew away![377] From this interesting collection the following is clipped: “In the yeere 1603, at Fremona, great misery happened by Grasse-hoppers, from which Paez freed the Catholikes, by Letanies and sprinkling the Fields with Holy-water; when as the Fields of Heretikes, seuered only by a Ditch, were spoyled by them. Yea, a Heretike vsing this sacred sprinkling, preserued his corne, which, to a Catholike neglecting in one Field, was lost, and preserued in another by that couiured aspersion (so neere of kinne are these Locusts to the Deuill, which is said to hate Holy-water).”[378] In the south of Europe rewards are offered for the collection both of the Locusts and their eggs; and at Marseilles, it is on record that, in the year 1613, 20,000 francs were paid for this purpose. In 1825, the same city paid a sum of 6200 francs for destroying these pests to agriculture.[379] We read in the eighty-first volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine, that most of the Agricultural Societies of Italy have offered premiums for the best method of destroying Locusts: that in many districts several thousand persons are employed in searching for the eggs; that in four days the inhabitants of the district of Ofanto collected at one time 80,000 sacks full, which were thrown into the river.[380] The noise Locusts make when engaged in the work of destruction has been compared to the sound of a flame of fire driven by the wind, and the effect of their bite to that of fire.[381] Volney says: “The noise they make, in browsing on the trees and herbage, may be heard at a great distance, and resembles that of an army foraging in secret.” His following sentence may also be introduced here: “The Tartars themselves are a less destructive enemy than these little animals.”[382] Robbins compares their noise to that of small pigs when eating corn.[383] The noise produced by their flight and approach, the poet Southey has strikingly described: Onward they came a dark continuous cloud Of congregated myriads numberless, The rushing of whose wings was as the sound Of a broad river headlong in its course Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm, Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks![384] Another comparison may be introduced here, to give some idea of the infinite numbers of these insects. Dr. Clarke compares a cloud of them to a flight of snow when the flakes are carried obliquely by the wind. They covered his carriage and horses, and the Tartars assert that people are sometimes suffocated by them. The whole face of nature might have been described as covered with a living veil. They consisted of two species--_Locusta tartarica_ and _L. migratoria_; the first is almost twice the size of the second, and, because it precedes it, is called by the Tartars the herald or messenger.[385]