eading (and not Long Heath) the reference is to
the Heather or Common Ling (_Calluna vulgaris_). This is the plant that
is generally called Ling in the South of England, but in the North of
England the name is given to the Cotton Grass (_Eriophorum_). It is very
probable, however, that no particular plant is intended, but that it
means any rough, wild vegetation, especially of open moors and heaths.

LOCUSTS.

_Iago._

The food that to him now is as luscious as Locusts, shall be
to him shortly as bitter as Coloquintida.

_Othello_, act i, sc. 3 (354).

The Locust is the fruit of the Carob tree (_Ceratonia siliqua_), a tree
that grows naturally in many parts of the South of Europe, the Levant,
and Syria, and is largely cultivated for its fruit.[148:1] These are
like Beans, full of sweet pulp, and are given in Spain and other
southern countries to horses, pigs, and cattle, and they are
occasionally imported into England for the same purpose. The Carob was
cultivated in England before Shakespeare's time. "They grow not in this
countrie," says Lyte, "yet, for all that, they be sometimes in the
gardens of some diligent Herboristes, but they be so small shrubbes that
they can neither bring forth flowers nor fruite." It was also grown by
Gerard, and Shakespeare may have seen it; but it is now very seldom seen
in any collection, though the name is preserved among us, as the
jeweller's carat weight is said to have derived its name from the Carob
Beans, which were used for weighing small objects.

The origin of the tree being called Locust is a little curious. Readers
of the New Testament, ignorant of Eastern customs, could not understand
that St. John could feed on the insect locust, which, however, is now
known to be a common and acceptable article of food, so they looked
about for some solution of their difficulty, and decided that the
Locusts were the tender shoots of the Carob tree, and that the wild
honey was the luscious juice of the Carob fruit. Having got so far it
was easy to go farther, and so the Carob soon got the names of St.
John's Bread and St. John's Beans, and the monks of the desert showed
the very trees by which St. John's life was supported. But though the
Carob tree did not produce the locusts on which St. John fed, there is
little or no doubt that "the husks which the swine did eat," and which
the Prodigal Son longed for, were the produce of