Read Online Locust by Jeffrey A. Lockwood - Free Book Online

so the name is quite appropriate. As for spretus, it derives from sperno : “to scorn, despise, or spurn.” And so, the Rocky Mountain locust was the despicable black knight of the continent—an abhorrent creature clad in dark armor that besieged the pioneers: a sort of eighteenth-century insect Darth Vader.
    There was some debate as to the most appropriate common name for M. spretus . Early American entomologists, having a bone to pick with various grasshoppers in the United States, had already coopted the names “Detestable locust” and “Devastating locust” for other species (which were actually grasshoppers, but adding locust made them sound more formidable). Otto Lugger, the first entomologist of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, advocated the “Hateful grasshopper” (or locust) for M. spretus . However, the less evocative but more biogeographically informative name of “Rocky Mountain locust” came into widespread use and general acceptance. This name associated the creature with the apparent origin of its outbreaks—the imposing range of peaks that protruded from the fertile prairies like the exposed skeletal backbone of the continent. What better place than these brooding, mysterious mountains from which to launch the hated armored legions that descended upon the vulnerable frontier farms and homesteads?
    For millennia, humans had perceived locusts as invading armies from far-off lands. The arrival of swarms appeared otherworldly, and
their scope of destruction seemed godlike. Such a sense of unearthly foreboding and divine malevolence resonates throughout the Exodus account of the sixth plague of Egypt:
    Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come upon the land of Egypt, and eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left.” So Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and that night; and when it was morning the east wind had brought the locusts. And the locusts came up over all the land of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever shall be again. For they covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt.
    So deeply rooted were these insects in the consciousness of Western culture, that the European settlers of America were destined to interpret the Rocky Mountain locust in profoundly religious terms. But making theological sense of such horrendous power was no simple matter—understanding the locust would be as difficult for ministers as it had been for scientists.

3
    The Sixth Plague

    I N THE EYES OF A YOUNG AMERICA, THE FARMER WAS the angel of growth. Thomas Jefferson had idealized the virtues of taming the profligate land and planting gardens in the wilderness. But how could the goodness of agriculture be reconciled with the destruction caused by the locusts? At a deep cultural level, the resolution of this conflict was found in religion. When faced with overwhelming loss, especially when wrought by nature, people often draw upon their faith for comfort and answers. And so, for the nineteenth-century Christian pilgrims battling the forces of nature in the American wilderness, the Bible was a powerful source of insight. However, its message concerning locusts and the suffering that followed the swarms was frustratingly ambiguous.

    In ancient times, interpreting the cause of a natural disaster was a vitally important task for theologians. In early cultures, locust swarms were most often understood to be a form of divine punishment, and so the most appropriate response was to submit in penitence, pray for forgiveness, and make offerings. According to Pliny, this approach worked in the first century, when