Capt. Drayson, in his South African Sporting, tells the following anecdote: A South African, riding through a flock of Locusts, was struck in the eye by one of them, and, though blinded momentarily in the injured eye, he still kept the other on the insect, which sought to escape by diving among the crowd on the ground. So, dismounting, he captured it, passed a large pin through its body, and thrust it in his waistcoat pocket; and whenever the damaged eye smarted, he pulled it out again, and stuck the pin through it in a fresh place.[438]
Darwin tells us that when the "Beagle" was to windward of the Cape de Verd Islands, and when the nearest point of land, not directly opposed to the trade-wind, was Cape Blanco on the coast of Africa, 370 miles distant, a large Grasshopper--_Acrydium_--flew on board![439] But Sir Hans Sloane mentions a much more remarkable flight in his History of Jamaica; for when the Assistance frigate was about 300 leagues to windward of Barbados, he says a Locust alighted on the forecastle among the sailors![440]
Several species of Locusts are beautifully marked; these were sought after by young Jewish children as playthings.[441]
The eggs of the _Chargol_ Locust, _Truxalis nasuta_?, the Jewish women used to carry in their ears to preserve them from the earache.[442]
The word _Locust_, Latin _Locusta_, is derived by the old etymologists from _locus_, a place, and _ustus_, burned,--"quod tactu multa _urit_ morsu vero omnia erodat." True Locusts are the _Acridium_, or _Criquets_, of Geoffroy, and the _Gryllus_ of Fabricius. The Migratory-locust, _Locusta migratoria_, a rather small insect, is the most celebrated species of the family. To it almost all the devastations before mentioned have been attributed. It is most probable, however, many species have been confounded under the same name.
In Spain, as we are told by Osbeck, the people of fashion keep a species of Locust--called there _Gryllo_--in cages--_grillaria_,--for the sake of its song.[443] De Pauw says that, like Canary birds, they were kept in cages to sing during the celebration of mass.[444]
The song of a Spanish Gryllo on one occasion, if we may credit the historian, was the means of saving a vessel from shipwreck. The incident evinces the perilous situation of Cabeza de Vara, in his voyage toward Brazil, and is related by Dr. Southey in his history of that country as follows: