Word: locusts
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...desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) is a hairy, six-legged, doublejawed grasshopper whose behavior has been exasperation and puzzling mankind ever since his appearance in Exodus as one of the ten plagues inflicted on Egypt by a wrathful Jehovah. Much of the time he is a normal grasshopper, evenly dispersed and foraging alone. Then suddenly, and at unpredictable intervals, he turns into a mob, blackening the skies like a tornado...
...fellows move relentlessly across countries and continents, consuming almost everything in their path that man, beast or insect could possibly eat. In the wake of a swarm, the fields and the trees are stripped bare-as if some huge vacuum cleaner had passed over the land. One ton of locusts, which is only a small platoon in a typical swarm, can consume as much in a day as ten elephants, 25 camels or 250 people. Over the centuries, the locust's sporadic depredations have inflicted famine on huge areas of Central Africa and Lower Asia-from Morocco to India...
...that wouldn't seem to be true from just looking around you. After all, rock records are selling all over town, like, three times more than ever before. And now there are lots of different groups in the racks, and so on. But the dreaded locust swarms of ill fortune will soon be seen darkening rock's horizons when the record companies jack up their lp prices to four and five dollars later in the next month. Slightly longer then a year ago records went for $2.40 apiece. Who's going to buy them when they cost twice as much...
...Donated to the city just for the joy of it by CBS Board Chairman William S. Paley, 65, it is only 42 ft. wide and 100 ft. deep, yet Paley Park offers pooped passers-by a respite at little white tables and chairs in a setting of geraniums, honey locust trees, and a 20-ft. waterfall whose roar all but drowns out the yowl of city traffic. Paley opened his $1,000,000 oasis, last occupied by the Stork Club, with no ceremony other than allowing his mother, Mrs. Samuel Paley, to push the button that started the waterfall...
...women make the most careful watchers. They know that the locust will be the last to lose its leaves, that its red will last nearly to Christmas. The women will not see the tree stripped, nor will they see the children who sled down the steps when snow fills some of the spaces; but the library caretakers and guards will take note and tell the women in the spring. All this pleases them. They are saddened only when the rain drives them from the steps or tourists pushing baby carriages ask that they move so this or that view will...