AN INTRODUCTION TO ENTOMOLOGY. FORMIDABLE as are the destroyers of which we have already given an account, there is another tribe of insects, the individuals of which far surpass them. We allude to the locust.. "To look at a locust, (say Messieurs Kirby and Spence) you would not, at first sight, deem it capable of being the source of so much evil to mankind as stands on record against it. 'This is but a small creature,' you would say, ' and the mischief which it causes cannot be far beyond the proportion of its bulk. The locust so celebrated in history must surely be of the Indian kind, mentioned by Pliny, which were three feet in length, with legs so strong that the women used them as saws. I see, indeed, some resemblance to the horse's head, but where are the eyes of the elephant, the neck of the bull, the horns of the stag, the chest of the lion, the belly of the scorpion, the wings of the eagle, the thighs of the camel, the legs of the ostrich, and the tail of the serpent, all of which the Arabians mention NO. 2. N. S. K as attributes of this widely-dreaded insect destroyer, but of which, in the insect before me, I can discern little or no likeness?' Yet, although this animal be not very tremendous for its size, nor very terrific in its appearance, it is the very same whose ravages have been the theme of naturalists and historians in all ages, and, upon a close examination, you will find it to be particularly fitted and furnished for the execution of its office. It is armed with two pair of very strong jaws, the upper terminating in short, and the lower in long teeth, by which it can both lacerate and grind its food; its stomach is of extraordinary capacity and powers; its hind legs enable it to leap to a very considerable distance, and its ample vans are calculated to catch the wind as sails, and so to carry it sometimes over the sea; and although a single individual can effect but little evil, yet when the entire surface of a country is covered by them, and every one makes bare the spot on which it stands, the mischief produced may be as infinite as their numbers. So well do the Arabians know their power, that they make a locust say to Mahomet, ́We are the army of the Great God; we produce ninety-nine eggs; if the hundred were completed, we should consume the whole earth, and all that is in it.' " After having mentioned the Egyptian plague of locusts, the writer thus proceeds. To this species of devastation Africa in general seems always to have been peculiarly subject. This may be gathered from the law in Cyrenaica, mentioned by Pliny, by which the inhabitants were enjoined to destroy the locusts in three different states, three times in the year; first, their eggs, then their young, and, lastly, the perfect insect.* And not without reason was A similar law was enacted in Lemnos, by which every one was compelled to bring a certain measure of locusts annually to the magistrate. such a law enacted; for Orosius tells us, that in the year of the world 3,800, Africa was infested by such infinite myriads of those animals, that, having devoured every green thing, after flying off to sea they were drowned, and being cast upon the shore, they emitted a stench greater than could have been produced by the carcases of 100,000 men. St. Augustine also mentions a plague to have arisen in that country from the same cause, which destroyed no less than 800,000 persons in the kingdom of Massanissa alone, and many more on the territories bordering on the sea. From Africa this plague was occasionally imported into Italy and Spain; and a historian, quoted in Mouffet, relates, that in the year 591, an infinite army of locusts, of a size unusually large, grievously ravaged part of Italy; and being at last cast into the sea, from their stench arose a pestilence which carried off near a million of men and beasts. In the Venetian territory, also, in 1478, more than 30,000 persons are said to have perished in a famine occasioned by these terrific scourges. Many other instances of their devastations in Europe, in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, &c. are recorded by the same author. In 1650, a cloud of them was seen to enter Russia in three different places, which from thence passed over into Poland and Lithuania, where the air was darkened by their numbers. some places they were seen lying dead, heaped upon one another to the depth of four feet; in others they covered the surface like a black cloth, the trees bent with their weight, and the damage they did exceeded all computation. At a later period, in Languedoc, when the sun became hot, they took wing and fell upon the corn, devouring both leaf and ear, that with such expedition, that in three hours they would consume a whole field. After having eaten In and up the corn, they attacked the vines, the pulse, the willows, and, lastly, the hemp, notwithstanding its bitterness. Sir Humphrey Davy informs us that the French government, in 1813, issued a decree, with a view to occasion the destruction of grasshoppers." TO BE RESUMED. A BOHEMIAN STORY. ALREADY had the principal clock in the little village of Weinberg, in Bohemia, sounded the hour of one, when the jovial party of bon vivans, assembled at the hospitable dwelling of their spiritual pastor, broke up, and after having drank their worthy entertainer's health in a well spiced “abschiedstrunk,” mounted, with no little exertion, their different steeds, and singing forth, in every possible discordant variety of tone, the parting words "Gute nacht," trotted through the village. Many were the unfortunate wights who, as our party pursued their course, were scared from their peaceful slumbers by the alarming cry of fire. Their muttered curses, when, after having thrown open their little casements, they discovered the disturbers of their quiet, were answered by peals of laughter, or loud shouts of boisterous mirth. At length, however, to the great joy of its peaceable inhabitants, they left the village, and reached an open and widely extended heath, over which, crossing in different directions according to their various destinations, they proceeded with all the dispatch of which their steeds were capable. But, as we purpose to follow the route of two only of the party, (who are our particular friends) through the remarkable adventures they experienced after leaving their companions, we consider it unnnecessary to say any thing further of the latter, than that they reached their houses with the usual quantum of dif ficulties and hair-breadth escapes incident to all who, have imbibed the inspiration of the juicy grape ; disasters to which Horace, who was wont to spend many a merry hour with his liberal patron, Mecanas, appears to have been no stranger : Ferebar incerto pede Ad non amicos heu! mihi postes et heu! Lib. V. II. per Proposing to conform to that rule which renders it imperative upon authors to enter into a description of the persons of their heroes or heroines, before commencing the narrative of their adventures, and which long established precedents have caused to be universally recognized, we shall begin by describing our worthy friend parson Schmolk. Pfar Schmolk, or as he was more usually called, Dominie Schmolk, who now took the lead, and, inspired by the fumes of his brother pastor's wine, had ventured to put his horse to the unusual pace of a gallop, was in p son rather short, clumsily made, and so much inclined to what the French dignify with the name of en bon point, that, what he wanted in stature, was amply compensated for in the portly rotundity of his figure. If he had been travelling in the frigid regions of Nova Zembla, he could not have taken more precautions to exclude from his goodly person the external air. His fat rubicund face was alone visible from amid the mountain of clothes with which he was overwhelmed, and exhibited those traits of self-satisfaction and good humour which usually characterize the favourites of Fortune, by whom this world, and the good things of this world, are enjoyed and properly valued. His companion, between |