Without going as far as the Arab I feel prepared to say that the Locust is a gift of God to a multitude of birds. Reptiles also hold him in esteem. I have found him in the stomach of the Eyed Lizard, and have often caught the little Grey Lizard of the walls in the act of carrying him off.
Even the fish revel in him, when good fortune brings him to them. The Locust leaps blindly, and without definite aim: he comes down wherever he is shot by the springs in his legs. If the place where he falls happens to be water, a fish gobbles him up at once. Anglers sometimes bait their hooks with a specially attractive Locust.
As for his being fit nourishment for man, except in the form of Partridge and young Turkey, I am a little doubtful. Omar, the mighty Caliph who destroyed the library of Alexandria, wished for a basket of Locusts, it is true, but his digestion was evidently better than his brains. Long before his day St. John the Baptist lived in the desert on Locusts and wild honey; but in his case they were not eaten because they were good.
Wild honey from the pots of the Mason-bees is very agreeable food, I know. Wishing to taste the Locust also I once caught some, and had them cooked as the Arab author advised. We all of us, big and little, tried the queer dish at dinner. It was much nicer than the Cicadæ praised by Aristotle. I would go to the length of saying [[233]]it is good—without, however, feeling any desire for more.
II
THEIR MUSICAL TALENT
The Locust possesses musical powers wherewith to express his joys. Consider him at rest, blissfully digesting his meal and enjoying the sunshine. With sharp strokes of the bow, three or four times repeated with a pause between, he plays his tune. He scrapes his sides with his great hind-legs, using now one, now the other, and now both at a time.
The result is very poor, so slight indeed that I am obliged to make use of little Paul’s sharp ear to make sure that there is a sound at all. Such as it is, it is like the squeaking of a needle-point pushed across a sheet of paper. There you have the whole song, which is very nearly silence.
We can expect no more than this from the Locust’s very unfinished instrument. There is nothing here like the Cricket’s toothed bow and sounding-board. The lower edge of the wing-cases is rubbed by the thighs, but though both wing-cases and thighs are powerful they have no roughnesses to supply friction, and there is no sign of teeth.