LOCUST
483
LOCUST
iii, 17 may easily have been the vymphm (which in all the A vietabula continue to Iced as in their larva condi- tion) encamping at night under the hedges, and, ob- taining their wings as the sun arose, are then represent- ed as hying away (so too Kitto, I'ict. Bible, note on Nah. iii, 17 ). It certainly is improbable that the Jews should have had no name for the locust in its larva or nympha state, for they must have been quite familiar with the sight of such devourers of every green thing, the larva? being even more destructive than the imago ; perhaps some of the other nine names, all of which Bochart con- siders to be the names of so many species, denote the insect in one or other of these conditions. See Grass- hopper.
(3.) Gazaji' (QT5, Joel i,4; ii,25; Amos iv,9; in all which the Sept. reads K«/i7r?/, the Vulg. eruca, and the English "palmer-worm"). Bochart observes that the Jews derive the word from T^S or tt3, "to shea?" or "clip," though he prefers CT!5, " to cut," because, he ob- serves, the locust gnaws the tender branches of trees as well as the leaves. Gesenius urges that the Chaldee and Syriac explain it as the young unhedged hruchus, ■which he consiflers very suitable to the passage in Joel, where the gazam begins its ravages before the locusts ; but Dr. Lee justly remarks that there is no dependence to be placed on this. Gesenius adds that the root tTy in Arabic and the Talmud is kindred with DD3, "to shear' — a derivation which, however, applies to most species of locusts. Michaelis follows the Sept. and Vul- gate, where the word in each most probably means the caterpillar, the larviB of the lepidopterous tribes of in- sects (iSupplem. ad Lex. 290, compared with Recueil de Quest, p. (53). We have, indeed, the authority of Colu- mella, that the creatiu-es which the Latins call erurxe are by the Greeks called Kapirai, or caterpillars (xi, 3), which he also describes as creeping upon vegetables and devouring them. Nevertheless, the depredations as- cribed to the rjuzam, in Amos, better agree with the characteristics of the locust, as, according to Bochart, it was understood by the ancient versions. The English word ^•palmer-icorm," in our old authors, means properly a hairy caterpillar, which wanders like a palmer or pil- grim, and, from its being rough, called also " beareworm" (^Mouftet, Insectoi-um Theatrum, p. 186). See Palmer-
WOIiJI.
(4.) Chagab' (SSn, Lev. xi, 22 ; Numb, xiii, 33 ; Isa. xl, 22; Eccles. xii, 5, and 2 Chron. vii, 13, in all which the Sept. reads ri/cpi'e, Vulg. locnsta, and Engl, "grass- hopper," except the last, where the Engl, has " locusts." The manifest impropriety of translating this word " grasshoppers" in Lev. xi, 22, according to the English acceptation of the word, appears from its description there as being winged and edible ; in all the other ixi- stances it most probably denotes a species of locust. Our translators have, indeed, properly rendered it " lo- cust" in 2 Chron. ; but in all the other places " grasshop- per," probably with a view to heighten the contrast de- scribed in those passages, but with no real advantage. Oedman {Verm. Samml. ii, 90) infers, from its being so often used for this purpose, that it denotes the smallest species of locust ; but in the passage iu Chronicles vo- racity seems its chief characteristic. An Arabic root, 3?t^, signifying " to hide," is usually adduced, because it is said that locusts fly in such crowds as to hide the sun; but others sa}^, from their hiding the ground when they alight. Even Parkhurst demurs that " to veil the sun and darken the air is not peculiar to any kind of locust;" and with no better success proposes to under- stand the cucuUated, or hooded, or veiled species of lo- cust. Tychsen {Comment, de Locust, p. 7G) supposes that chagab denotes the Gryllus coronatus, Lum. ; but this is the Acanthodis corotiatus of And. Serv., a South American species, and probal)ly confined to that conti- nent. Michaelis (Siipplem. CG8), who derives the word from an Arabic root signifying " to veil," conceives that
chagab represents either a locust at the fourth stage of its growth, "ante quartas exuvias "quod adhuc velata est," or else at the last stage of its growth, " post quar- tas exuvias, quod jam volans solem calumque obvelat." To the first tlieory the passage in Lev. xi is opposed. The second theory is more reasonable, but chagab is probably derived not from the Arabic, but the Hebrew. From what has been stated above, it will appear better to own our complete inability to say what species of lo- cust chagab denotes, than to hazard conjectures which must be grounded on no solid foundation. In the Tal- mud chagab is a collective name for many of the locust tribe, no less than eight hundred kinds of chagabim be- ing supposed by the Talmud to exist ! (Lewysohn, Zoo- log, des Talin. § 384). Some kinds of locusts are beau- tifully marked, and were sought after by young Jewish children as playthings, just as butterflies and cockchaf- ers are nowadays. M. Lewysohn says (§ 384) that a regular traffic used to be carried on with the chagabim, which were caught in great numbers, and sold after wine had been sprinkled over them ; he adds that the Israelites were only allowed to buy them before the dealer had thus prepared them. See Grasshopper.