SHEMSKEIN. [P.239]Those Which I Saw In The Haouran, And Afterwards In The Gardens Of Damascus, Fly In Separate Bodies, And Do Not Spread Over A Whole District.

The young of this species are quite black until a certain age.

The Bedouins eat locusts, which are collected in great quantities in the beginning of April, when the sexes cohabit, and they are easily caught; after having been roasted a little upon the iron plate [Arabic], on which bread is baked, they are dried in the sun, and then put into large sacks, with the mixture of a little salt. They are never served up as a dish, but every one takes a handful of them when hungry. The peasants of Syria do not eat locusts, nor have I myself ever had an opportunity of tasting them: there are a few poor Fellahs in the Haouran, however, who sometimes pressed by hunger, make a meal of them; but they break off the head and take out the entrails before they dry them in the sun. The Bedouins swallow them entire. The natural enemy of the locust is the bird Semermar [Arabic]; which is of the size of a swallow, and devours vast numbers of them; it is even said that the locusts take flight at the cry of the bird. But if the whole feathered tribe of the districts visited by locusts were to unite their efforts, it would avail little, so immense are the numbers of these dreadful insects.

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