In Chapter 12, Dillard observes the world at night. Considering the grasshoppers leads her into thoughts of locusts. How did early people see locusts, and where does Dillard's thoughts on them lead?

For centuries, no one understood how the locusts appear and disappear so suddenly. A Russian botanist solved the puzzle in discovering that locusts are merely grasshoppers under stress. Eggs laid by locusts become ordinary grasshoppers, unless they are born in a drought or famine. The noise and destruction millions of locusts produce is incredible. The fact that for thousands of years locusts were thought to be a plague sent by God is an example of how humans, in their ignorance, apply a spiritual interpretation to a natural phenomenon.