Locust (7 page)

Not only are locusts haphazardly scattered throughout the evolutionary lineages within the Acrididae, they are also frustratingly difficult to define in discrete, ecological terms. In a sense, locusts are to grasshoppers as athletes are to humans. Nobody would doubt that a professional basketball player is an athlete, but what about a professional golfer or bowler? What about the dedicated amateur training for the Olympic curling team? And what about the weekend warrior on the softball field? Rather like being an athlete, being a locust is a matter of degree. Some creatures exhibit weak tendencies toward aggregating as nymphs or adults and others manifest the full-blown locust syndrome—the Rocky Mountain locust and the Desert locust of the Old Testament being classic cases at the extreme end of the locust spectrum. At the other end are the various garden-variety grasshoppers that placidly masticate our lettuce patches and bask in abandoned lots (the short antennae of these creatures distinguish them from related families of insects commonly found in pastures and fields—the katydids and crickets).

Locusts may not be readily classified, but entomologists are strident in their contention that this term should not be—as it often is—applied
to cicadas. Cicadas are the stumpy, clear-winged insects that resemble gargantuan aphids and belong to the same order as their tiny cousins. Thus cicadas are in an entirely different insect order from the grasshoppers or locusts (Homoptera versus Orthoptera). This might seem a hairsplitting exercise, but consider that in mammals, elephants and shrews are also in different orders. The misnaming of cicadas as locusts originated in the late 1600s and has continued to the present day in some areas of the United States. The confusion is understandable from an ecological, if not a taxonomic, perspective. After all, the periodical cicadas emerge from the ground in staggering numbers and fill the forests with their incessant buzzing. If being a locust were simply a matter of being an insect herbivore that could suddenly attain incredible populations, then perhaps cicadas would qualify. But as opposed to true locusts, cicadas lay their eggs on plants (rather than in the soil), live underground as root-feeding nymphs for up to seventeen years (rather than living above ground and eating leaves and stems while maturing in a few weeks), feed sparingly as adults by piercing a plant with their elongated stylets (rather than feeding voraciously by biting and chewing their food), and remain in the vicinity where they emerged (rather than migrating in swarms).

 

The officially sanctioned, scientific name of the Rocky Mountain locust is
Melanoplus spretus
. This approved name was chosen by Benjamin Walsh in 1866, although entomologists had been variously referring to this creature for some time. The locust had been unofficially named a few years earlier by Philip Uhler, a Harvard-educated entomologist who was deemed America’s greatest hemipterist (Hemiptera being the order of insects comprising the true bugs—a group that might not leap to one’s mind as being associated with scientific greatness, but entomologists are a proud, if quirky, lot). He called the insect
Acridium spretus
(the genus
Acridium
was later changed to
Caloptenus
and finally to
Melanoplus,
which is the currently accepted name). In the twisted course of taxonomic history, this name was subsequently and rather surprisingly misprinted by another entomologist as
A. spretis
and later as
A. spretum
. Biologists take the scientific names of organisms very seriously, so the lackadaisical approach to
the spelling of this species is unusual. Although Walsh used Uhler’s original spelling, the credit for naming the species goes to Walsh. As opposed to his predecessor, Walsh’s publication included a full description of the creature along with the name: A detailed characterization of an organism’s appearance is considered one of the essential components in creating a valid scientific name for a new species.

All scientific names must take a Latinized form, which facilitates international communication, keeps an otherwise dead language alive, and makes for interesting translations. In the case of the Rocky Mountain locust, the genus
Melanoplus
came from the Greek meaning “black armored.” Although the adult locust was more of an olive green, other species in the genus are decidedly darker, and all of these creatures are encased in a sturdy exoskeleton, 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:

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.

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 appeals to Jupiter produced flocks of rose-colored starlings that destroyed the locusts in Asia Minor. The early Muslims also saw locusts as the apocalyptic agents of God. Even the good Christian entomologists, Kirby and Spence, were well aware of the Islamic perspective: “So well do the Arabians know their power, that they make a locust say to Mahomet, ‘We are the army of the great God; we produced ninety-nine eggs; if the hundred were completed, we should consume the whole earth and all that is in it.’” And in 1864, when American farmers were besieged by locusts, pious Muslims in Syria exorcised and ostracized locusts by reading the Koran aloud in ravaged fields on the other side of the world.

The Christian response to locust invasions was most thoroughly documented in Edward P. Evans’s bizarre and authoritative treatise,
The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals
. Amid incredible accounts of legal proceedings against unruly pets and homicidal livestock can be found the strangest of all human-animal legal conflicts that played out in the ecclesiastical courts of Europe—locusts on trial. The earliest involvement of the Church as an extermination agency appears to be in 880, when Roman authorities sought help from Pope Stephan VI. The Holy Father provided a huge volume of holy water, which was apparently used in the course of exorcising the swarm. But exorcism became viewed as a drastic intervention, so a more subtle strategy emerged.

During the reign of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, the Church took a different tack in dealing with troublesome locusts: excommunication. This approach was applied to a swarm that settled in the northern Italian province of Mantua. In this case, as in many previous instances, the locusts dutifully dispersed not long after the Church’s proclamation. Of course, locust swarms tend to move about even when they are not the subjects of religious persecution, but this entomological pattern did nothing to diminish people’s faith in the efficacy
of religious interventions. The use of excommunication, however, raised a thorny theological issue. To be excommunicated one needs to be a communicant in the first place. That is, if an insect is not part of the Church and able to partake in communion, then it is, strictly speaking, nonsensical to excommunicate the creature, no matter how destructive it might be. The only legitimate recourse was to anathematize, or curse, the beasts. But this raised an even more troublesome religious problem.

A locust swarm could mean one of two things. The insects might be the work of godless nature or even the devil. If plowing and planting were noble labor, even a higher calling, then the locusts could be seen as the diabolical work of Satan. In this case, calling upon the Church to deliver a searing curse might be just the thing to drive them away. On the other hand, the creatures could be emissaries of God sent to punish the people for their sins. If the farmers had wandered from the straight and narrow, then the locusts could be viewed as the servants of an angry God. In this case, the proper response would be humility and repentance to placate the angry deity, who might then send the swarm on its way. The last thing a cleric wanted to do was to pronounce an anathema on the Lord’s messengers. So, how could the Church know whether a locust swarm originated demonically or divinely?

 

On St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1338, locusts began to decimate the farming region around Botzen in the Tyrol of modern-day Austria. To determine the proper course of events—repentance or curse—the church convened a trial of the insects before the ecclesiastical court at Kaltern. The trial followed what had become a standard sequence of events. First came a petition from those seeking redress. If the petition was accepted, the proceedings next involved a declaration or plea on behalf of the inhabitants. This was a flowery speech concerning the horrors of hunger with loads of classic citations, historical allusions, irrelevant digressions, and literary discourses. The meandering series of accusations was followed by the defense’s allegation or plea for the insects. As the locusts could not speak for themselves, they were given legal counsel, who was no less officious in his rejoinder.

These phases were followed by the presentation of substantive arguments for and against the locusts. The defense invoked the entomological equivalent of the modern insanity plea to contend that the locusts lacked reason and volition and were thus immune from condemnation. After all, the insects were simply exercising their innate and God-given rights to swarm and feed. The prosecution rebutted this claim by acknowledging that the law cannot punish the irrational or insane for crimes already committed but pointed out that it can intervene to prevent further harm. So, the anathema should not be seen as punishing the locusts but as a means of driving them away before they did more damage. Then, the prosecutor played theological hardball, noting that Jesus cursed the fig tree, an entirely irrational organism—and was it the defense counsel’s intention to question the Son of God’s judgment?