But if those jolly fellows,
instead of the straw that they must thrust into the fly's tail (a
great injury no doubt to such a noble champion), would bestow the cost
to set a fool's cap upon their own heads, then might they with more
security and less reprehension behold these notable battles.
Now, as concerning the locust, I am led by divers of my country, who
(as they say) were either in Germany, Italy, or Pannonia, 1542, when
those nations were greatly annoyed with that kind of fly, and affirm
very constantly that they saw none other creature than the grasshopper
during the time of that annoyance, which was said to come to them from
the Meotides. In most of our translations also of the Bible the word
_locusta_ is Englished a grasshopper, and thereunto (Leviticus xi.) it
is reputed among the clean food, otherwise John the Baptist would
never have lived with them in the wilderness. In Barbary, Numidia, and
sundry other places of Africa, as they have been,[6] so are they eaten
to this day powdered in barrels, and therefore the people of those
parts are called _Acedophagi_: nevertheless they shorten the life of
the eaters, by the production at the last of an irksome and filthy
disease.
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