A rich content is ours, beyond
The Shadow of the Cross.
[LESSONS FROM NATURE.]
By JEAN A. OWEN, Author of “Forest, Field and Fell,” etc.
PART IV.
THE LOCUSTS THAT GO BY BANDS.
The locusts we take as an instance of what unity in action—co-operation, in fact—can effect. “They have,” says the wise man, “no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands.” Creatures these are so frail, so unsubstantial, that they can be crushed to naught almost; yet they are able to thwart man’s watchful care, and to undo the work of the industry of months, when they settle in hosts, brought by some mysterious instinct, sometimes by the scarcity of those other creatures which, under the laws that keep even the balance of nature, feed upon them, so reducing their numbers.
Whole tracts of land are devastated by these winged armies. In the south of England some of you have seen, during the last dry summer that we had, what legions of caterpillars covered vast tracts of land, eating every vestige of green and leaving bare stalks where fine cabbages and other crops had been looked for. Ravagers of forests, also, some of these insignificant insects have been called, and with good reason.
The term locust we take as a symbol, and we will include here the various groups of tiny beings which, by reason of their vast numbers and the way in which they come and go “in bands,” become such formidable enemies of our race.