Dr. Clarke in his _Travels_ speaks of locusts covering “his carriage and horses, and says the Tartars assert that people are sometimes suffocated by them.” He mentions two species, “the first of which is almost twice the size of the second, and, because it precedes it, is called by the Tartars the herald or messenger.” From 1778 to 1780 a dreadful curse of locusts, alluded to by Southey in his “Thalaba”—or, perhaps, forming the subject of that poem—I really don’t know—fell upon the Empire of Morocco. “Everything green was eaten up, not even the bitter bark of the orange and pomegranate escaping. A most dreadful famine ensued. The poor were seen to wander over the country deriving a miserable subsistence from the roots of plants; and women and children followed the camels, from whose dung they picked the undigested grains of barley, which they devoured with avidity; in consequence of which numbers perished, and the roads and streets exhibited the unburied carcases of the dead.” Again, “From Mogador to Tangier, before the plague of 1799, the face of the earth was covered by them. At that time a singular incident occurred at El Araiche. The whole region from the confines of the Sahara was ravaged by them; but on the other side of the river, El Kos, not one was to be seen, though there was nothing to prevent their flying over it. Till then they had proceeded northwards; but upon arriving at its banks they turned to the east, so that all the country north of El Araiche was full of pulse, fruits, and grain—exhibiting a most striking contrast to the desolation of the adjoining district.” Lastly—that is to say, to make a last quotation from the classics—“The Arabs of the Desert, whose hands are against every man, and who rejoice in the evil that befalls other nations, when they behold the clouds of locusts proceeding from the north, are filled with gladness, anticipating a general mortality, which they call _El Khere_ (the benediction), for when a country is thus laid waste they emerge from their arid deserts and pitch their tents in the desolated plains.”