ith
guns and stones, to kill them; and sometimes large fires are kindled for
the same purpose. The dead ones are taken by cart loads to markets, and
sold for food."

"To be eaten, sir!" said Samuel.

"Yes," replied Mr. Harvey, "mixed with butter, and fried in a pan, they
form almost all the meat that the poorer classes in those countries
get."

"Its a shocking meal" said John.

"Not so bad as you suppose," said his father. "Perhaps, if it were not
the custom in this country to eat lobsters or hogs, we would look upon
them with as much disgust as you do upon locusts. What do you think of
dining off of spiders?"

"Horrible," said John. His father continued:

"I have read of a man who ate nothing else, when he could get spiders.
So you see that people's tastes differ. You know that John Baptist's
food was locusts and wild honey."

"Do the people kill all the locusts in a swarm?" asked Thomas.

"No," said his father, "a swarm is so large that after hundreds of cart
loads are taken from it, it seems no smaller. Generally, the wind drives
them into the sea, where they perish. But their dead bodies, cast upon
shore, become corrupt, and produce plagues."

"I wish," said John, "that the wind would drive all we have into the
sea, or else a good distance from our fig tree. Who would think that
such little animals could do so much mischief."

"Is it true that locusts return after every seventeen years?" asked
Samuel.

"Yes," said Mr. Harvey; "but not the common kind, such as ate the fig
tree. All locusts come from eggs. In first coming from the egg, they are
not winged, but look like grub worms. After a while these grubs cast off
their skins, and become locusts. Now, there is a kind of locust which is
seventeen years in changing from the egg to the full insect It is this
kind which is so numerous every seventeen years. If you go into the
field when they are coming from the ground, you will see the grass and
plants covered with them."

"Father," said John, "why did the locusts strip all the leaves from the
fig tree, without touching any of the flowers or bushes around?"

"I suppose," said Mr. Harvey, "it is because the fig tree is very
tender. It comes, you know, from warm countries, and is there the proper
food of the locust. Had there been figs on the tree, they would, no
doubt, have been eaten also."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE RETURN HOME.

A few days after this conversation, a large fox came, in the evenin