LOCUST (loeusta of some entomologists, and aerydium of others), the type of a family (locu.stidce or aerydklal of the order orthoptera and section sanatoria (see Gumuus). Lo custs differ from grasshoppers and crickets in their short antennm and in the greater robust ness of their bodies and limbs. The head is large, with two projecting oval compound eyes, and three stemmatic eyes on its summit. The wings when folded meet at an angle above the back; the abdomen is conical and compressed. Their hind-legs are large, and they possess a great power of leaping. They make a stridulant noise by the friction of the rough hind-legs against the wing-covers. The wing-covers are leathery, 11;11TONl er than the wings, but equal to them in length; the wings are large, reticulated, fold like a fan, and are often beautifully colored—red, pink, brown, green, or blue. The power of flight of locusts has been the subject of much dispute, some asserting that they can fly to great distances, others that they have little power of flight and are merely carried before a gale of wind. The truth seems to be between these extreme opinions: locusts fly well, but they are sometimes wafted by winds where their power of flight would never have carried Wein. Their food consists of the leaves and green stalks of plants; the mandibles and maxillse are strong, sharp, and toothed, and in eating they use their fore feet to bring their food to their mouths. They generally quite consume any stalk of grass or other green thing which they have selected and cut. The terrible ravages of locusts are owing to the vast numbers in which they appear, filling the air like flakes of snow; darkening the sky, so that object casts no shadow; seeming, in the distance, like a thick smoke; advancing with a sound like the rushing of chariots or of waters, or, in the words of the prophet Joel, "like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble;" whilst, as he also says, " the land is as the garden of Edeu Wore them, and behind them a desolate wilderness." They cat up every green thing, and after the grass. and leaves they devour in their hunger the bark of trees and shrubs. Ripe grain, how ever, may escape, as being too hard and dry. These multitudinous swarms of locusts
do not appear annually; it is only after the lapse of a number of years that they are again so great and so destructive; and particular years arc marked in the history or some countries as years of their extraordinary abundance, and of consequent famine and pestilence. When driven by a strong wind into the sea, they have somethnes been flung back ou the beach in such quantities as to produce a stench intolerable to a gteat distance.
Locusts are found in almost all parts of the world except the coldest regions, but they abound chiefly in tropical and subtropical countries, and most of all in Arabia and Africa. The eastern and southern parts of Europe are occasionally visited by their destructive hosts, and in the s. of France rewards are paid for the collection of locusts and of their eggs. The eggs are found cemented together in little masses in the ground. The insects theinselves are taken by means of a stout cloth, the edge of which is made to sweep over the surface of the ground, and the locusts thus thrown together ale quickly gathered into sacks. A similar mode of diminishing the nuisance is adopted in North America; but before an invasion such as districts of Asia and Africa are occasion ally subjected to all human effort fails.
Locusts are eaten in many countries, roasted or fried in butter. They are also pre served in brine or dried in the min. They thus appear in the markets of Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Madagascar, etc., and are even exported as an article of commerce.
The most noted species is locusta migratoria (or aerydium migratorium) about 24 in. in length, greenish, with brown wing-covers marked with black. It is this species which is most frequently seen in Europe. It is a rare visitant of Britain. Other species belong to other parts of the world. Some of them, forming tbe genus truzalis, and inhabitinrr the warmest countries, are remarkable for their elongated conical head.
The little chirping "grasshoppers" most common in Britain, differina from true grasshoppers in their short antennte, belong to the genus tetriz and family loCustidce.