YELEK (p9+). This term is variously rendered (Ps. cv. 34, gpaixos, bi-/re-/tux, caterpillar ; Jer. 14, 27, dxpis, bruats, caterpillar ; and in the latter passage the Vulg. reads brucus aculeatzts, and some copies horripilantes ; Joel i. 4, 25, gpoilxos, bruelius, cankerworm ; Nah. 15, 16, dvis and pporixos, cankerworm). Assuming that the Psalmist means to say that the was really another species employed in the plague on Egypt, the English word caterpillar in the common acceptation cannot be correct, for we can hardly imagine that the larvm of the Papilionidm tribe of insects could be carried by winds.' Cankerworm means any worm that preys on fruit. BpoOxos could hardly be understood by the Sept. translators of the minor prophets as an unfledged locust ; for in Nah. 16 they give 13P00Xos 6519p.nce Kai 4ererd.a0n, the PP00X0, files away. The Arabic to be white, is offered ; hence the white locust, or the chafer-worm which is white (Michaelis, Peened de Quest. p. 64 ; sup.
ad Lex. Ifeb. p. 108o). Others give to lick off, as Gesenius, who refers to Num. xxii. 4, where this root is applied to the ox licking' up Lis pasturage, and which, as descriptive of celerity in eating, is supposed to apply to the 04. Others
suggest the Arabic to hasten, alludin,g to the quick motions of locusts. The passage in Jer.
27 is the only instance where an epithet is applied to the locust, and there We find rough caterpillars.' As a noun the word means nails,' sharp-pointed spikes.' Hence Michaelis refers it to the rough sharp-pointed feet of some species of chafer (ut supra). Oedman takes it for the G. cristatzts of Linn. Tychsen, with more probability, refers it to some rough or bristly species of locust, as the G. heematopus of Linn., whose thighs are ciliated with hairs. Many grylli are furnished with spines and bristles ; the whole species acheta, also the pu,pa species of Linn., called by Degeer Locusta pupa spinosa, which is thus described : —Thorax ciliated with spines, abdomen tuberculous and spinous, posterior thighs armed beneath with four spines or teeth ; inhabits Ethiopia. The allusion in Jer. is to the ancient accoutrement of war-horses, bristling with sheaves of arrows.—J. F. D.