For you must know that locusts being very greedy, and very numerous, do much harm. They move quickly, and in great swarms. Though they live in swarms they have no queen as the bees have, and they do no work as bees and ants do. Probably there is no living thing seen in such numbers as the locusts. We can scarcely believe or understand what we are told about the multitudes of these insects which appear in the East. They fill the sky like a great cloud, so that the day is darkened. When they see a green place, they settle to feed. In a few minutes the green is all gone. The place is as brown and bare as if a fire had swept over it. People hear with terror that the locusts are coming. They know the crops will be eaten up. Then food will be scarce, and the people will be poor. If by chance a swarm is destroyed by other means than by fire, all the air for miles will be filled with the bad smell of the decaying bodies. The only good that poor people can get from the locusts is by eating them. They pull off the wings, and legs, and dry the bodies. They eat them fried in oil and salt, or ground into meal, after roasting. The locusts cannot fly against the wind. They go with the wind. It brings them, and if it changes, it sweeps them away. Sometimes the wind drives them out to sea. If they become too weary to fly, they drop into the waves and are drowned. This often happens. Then the water washes their bodies ashore. The coast of Africa has been found covered thick with them, for the space of fifty miles. But they do not always drop into the sea. They are very strong on the wing. A great swarm of locusts was met by a ship, twelve hundred miles from shore. They surrounded the ship, and hid the sun. As their flight is so strong, locusts can go from one country to another. They pass from Africa to the south of Europe. They go from the mainland to the islands. Usually the locusts fly during the day, while the air is hot and dry. Late in the day they settle to feed, and where they stop they stay until all green things are eaten up. Of course they do not feed when on the wing. They run along the ground to eat. People try many ways of killing locusts. Sometimes deep trenches are cut, and filled with water, so that the young unwinged locusts, as they run along the ground, will fall in and be drowned. But the locusts are in such numbers that the drowned ones soon fill the trenches. The others run safely over the dead bodies. Sometimes great fires are lit across their path. Then the hordes of locusts crowd on, and at last, the fires are put out by the burned bodies. After that, the others pass on unhurt.