Part 27

If by chance a swarm is destroyed by other means than by fire, all the air for miles will be filled with the bad smell of the decaying bodies.

The only good that poor people can get from the locusts is by eating them. They pull off the wings, and legs, and dry the bodies. They eat them fried in oil and salt, or ground into meal, after roasting.

The locusts cannot fly against the wind. They go with the wind. It brings them, and if it changes, it sweeps them away. Sometimes the wind drives them out to sea. If they become too weary to fly, they drop into the waves and are drowned. This often happens. Then the water washes their bodies ashore. The coast of Africa has been found covered thick with them, for the space of fifty miles.

But they do not always drop into the sea. They are very strong on the wing. A great swarm of locusts was met by a ship, twelve hundred miles from shore. They surrounded the ship, and hid the sun.

As their flight is so strong, locusts can go from one country to another. They pass from Africa to the south of Europe. They go from the mainland to the islands.

Usually the locusts fly during the day, while the air is hot and dry. Late in the day they settle to feed, and where they stop they stay until all green things are eaten up. Of course they do not feed when on the wing. They run along the ground to eat.

People try many ways of killing locusts. Sometimes deep trenches are cut, and filled with water, so that the young unwinged locusts, as they run along the ground, will fall in and be drowned. But the locusts are in such numbers that the drowned ones soon fill the trenches. The others run safely over the dead bodies.

Sometimes great fires are lit across their path. Then the hordes of locusts crowd on, and at last, the fires are put out by the burned bodies. After that, the others pass on unhurt.

You must know that the young locust is quite as greedy, and as great a terror as his parents. In the larval and pupal states, they migrate as well as when they have wings. They seem born to eat and to travel. At this stage they go by walking. They march in a solid column like soldiers. They move straight on, nothing turning them aside. Is a house in the way? Over it and into it they go. You know some ants move in swarms in this way.

The locust, being larger, more numerous, and more greedy than the ants, do much harm. If they find a town in their path, through it they go. Countless numbers may be killed, but there are countless numbers to follow. Is a river in the way? Into it they tumble, and when enough dead bodies lie on the water to make a raft, the other locusts pass safely over.

One great trouble about the locust is, that when a full-grown swarm passes through a place the ground is left full of eggs. The next year these hatch, and the larvæ and pupæ eat up all that has grown since their parents ravaged the land.

Famines of two or three years duration have been caused in this way. You will not wonder at the strength of locusts and the amount of food they need, when I tell you that one kind is quite a foot broad from tip to tip of the wings.

The great foreign locusts are very splendid to look at. They are dressed like soldiers in crimson and blue. Their fierce eyes shine, and the rush of their wings makes a sound like the coming of an army.

Did I not give this locust a good name, when I called him the robber cousin?

FOOTNOTES:

See Nature Reader, No. 2. Lessons on Ants.

LESSON XIX.

THE MERRY COUSINS.

You have heard about the robber cousin of the Old Man of the Meadow. Now you shall hear about a very happy and harmless little cousin. Here he is!

Did you ever meet him in your walks? Did he ever come creeping out of a hole in the wall, or from a chink in the bricks in the hearth, and sit down by you before the fire?

Did you notice how he waved his long feelers gently in the heat, and seemed to bask in the glow as pussy does? If you were very still, perhaps all at once he burst into a shrill, gay little song.

Did you notice what a shining, dark-brown coat he had? Did you see that his tail had two long, stiff hairs, or bristles, spread out from each other? Did you think that they were like the long tail hairs of the bright and dainty May-fly?

When you saw all this did you know your little friend well? Did you call him by his name, “How are you, Mr. Cricket”?

Ah, the cricket is a right-jolly little fellow; let us take a good look at him.

There are three kinds of crickets which we shall talk about. The house cricket, the field cricket, the mole cricket.

The body of the cricket is not so slender as that of the grasshopper, it is short and thick. It is much the shape of the first joint of your thumb. The color is a dark, glossy brown, sometimes almost black.

The feelers are very long, longer than the whole body. The eyes are large and round. The under wings are very large, much larger than the wing-cases. When they are folded up, they reach out beyond the covers and the body, in a long needle-like roll. It looks as if Mr. Cricket were carrying home something under his arm.

Near where the wing cover joins his body, Mr. Cricket has a little, thin drum-head for his music. He is very fond of making a noise. The French call him “Cri-cri” from the sound he makes. We call him “cricket” for the same reason.