THE beetle is mentioned only in Lev. xi. 22. It is thought by some critics to be a species of the locust, but by others, the very kind of scarabæus which the ancient Egyptians held in such veneration as to pay it divine honors,

In the Philosophical Transactions there is a paper on the bruchus, a great number of which were found in Ireland, in the year 1688. We shall present our readers with a few extracts from this work, leaving them to form their own judgment, as to the identity of the insect described with the canker-worm of scripture.

'These insects appeared first on the south-west coast of the county of Galway, whence they made their way into the more inland parts, where multitudes of them showed themselves among the trees and hedges in the day-time, hanging by the boughs, thousands together, in clusters, sticking to the back of one another, as is the manner of bees when they swarm. In this posture, or lying still, and covert under the leaves of the trees, or clinging to the branches, 19*

they continued quiet, with little or no motion, during the heat of the sun, but towards evening or sun-set they would all rise, disperse, and fly about, with a strange humming noise, much like the beating of drums at some distance, and in such vast incredible numbers, that they darkened the air for the space of two or three miles square.

A short while after their coming, they had so entirely eat up and destroyed all the leaves of the trees for some miles round about, that the whole country, though it was in the middle of summer, was left as bare and naked as if it had been in the depth of winter, making a most unseemly, and, indeed, frightful appearance: and the noise they made whilst they were seizing and devouring this, their prey, was as surprising; for the grinding of the leaves in the mouths of this vast multitude all together, made a sound very much resembling the sawing of timber. Nor were the trees abroad, and the hedges in the field the only sufferers by this vermin; they came also into the gardens, and destroyed the buds, blossoms, and leaves of all the fruit trees, that they were left perfectly naked; nay, many of them that were more delicate than the rest, lost their sap as well as leaves, and quite withered away, so that they never recovered it again. Nay, their multitude spread so exceedingly, that they disturbed men in even their dwellings; for out of the gardens they got into the houses, where numbers of them crawling about were very irksome, and they would often drop on the meat as it was dressing in the kitchen, and frequently fall from the ceiling of the rooms into the dishes as they stood on the table while they ate; so extremely offensive and loathsome were they, as well as prejudicial and destructive.

'Nor did the mischievous effects of this pernicious vermin stop here; their numerous creeping spawn, which they had lodged under ground next to the upper sod of the earth, did more harm in that close retirement, than all the flying swarms of their parents had done abroad; for this young destructive brood did not withhold from what was much more necessary to have been spared, and what their sires had left untouched: these lying under ground, fell to devouring the roots of the corn and grass, and eating them up, ruined both the support of man and beast; for these, losing their roots, soon withered and came to nought, to the vast damage of the country,

'But notwithstanding this plague of vermin did thus mightily prevail and infest the country, yet it would have been still more violent, had not its rage been fortunately checked several ways. High winds, wet and misling weather, were extremely disagreeable to the nature of this insect; and so prejudicial as to destroy many millions of them in one day's time: whence I gather, that though we have them in these northern moist climates, they are more natural, and more peculiarly belonging to warm and dry countries. Whenever these ill constitutions of the air prevailed, their bodies were so enfeebled, they would let go their holds, and drop to the

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ground from the branches where they stuck, and so little a fall as this, at that time, was of sufficient force quite to disable, and sometimes perfectly kill them. Nay, it was observable, that even when they were most agile and vigorous, a slight blow or offence would for some time hinder their motion, if not deprive them of life, which was very extraordinary in a creature of that strength and vivacity in its flight. During these unfavorable seasons of weather, the swine and poultry of the country at length grew so cunning, as to watch under the trees for their falling; and when they came to the ground eat them up in abundance, being much pleased with the food, and thriving well upon the diet; nay, I have been assured, that the poorer sort of the native Irish (the country then laboring under a scarcity of provision) had a way of dressing them, and lived upon them as food; nor is it strange, that what fattened our domestic poultry and hogs, should afford agreeable and sufficient nourishment for the relief of man.

'But towards the latter end of the summer, the exact time I have not learnt, they constantly eased the country, and retired of themselves; and so wholly disappeared, that in a few days you should not see one left in all those parts that were so lately pestered with them.

"This pernicious insect of ours, I am fully convinced from good reasons, is that self-same so often mentioned in holy Scripture, and commonly joined in company with the locust, as being both great destroyers of the fruits of the earth.'

THE CATERPILLAR.

IN Hebrew this insect is called the consumer, and in 1 Kings viii, 37; 2 Chron. vi. 28; Joel i. 4; chap. ii. 25; it is distinguished from the locust properly so called. In Joel i. 4, it is mentioned as eating up what the other species had left, and therefore might well be called the consumer, by way of eminence. But the ancient interpreters are far from being agreed what particular species it sig, nifies.

THE PALMER-WORM.

BOCHART is of opinion that this insect is a kind of locust, furnished with very sharp teeth, with which it gnaws off grass, corn, leaves of trees, and even their bark. The Jews support this idea

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by deriving the word from guz, or gazaz, to cut, to shear, to minoe. This sharp instrument of theirs has given occasion to Pisidas to compare a swarm of locusts to a sword with ten thousand edges. Caterpillars begin their ravages before the locust, which, as Mr. Taylor observes, seems to coincide with the nature of the creature here intended: "That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten,' Joel i. 4.

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