ORTHOPTERA. 153 



checking and destroying them should be fully explained. The 

 naturalist, however, seldom has it in his power to put in practice 

 the various remedies which his knowledge or experience may 

 suggest. His proper province consists in examining the living 

 objects about him with regard to their structure, their scientific 

 arrangement, and their economy or history. In doing this, he 

 opens to others the way to a successful course of experiments, the 

 trial of which he is generally obliged to leave to those who are 

 more favorably situated for their performance. 



In the South of France the people make a business, at certain 

 seasons of the year, of collecting locusts and their eggs, the latter 

 being turned out of the ground in little masses cemented and cov- 

 ered with a sort of gum in which they are enveloped by the in- 

 sects. Rewards are offered and paid for their collection, half a 

 franc being given for a kilogramme (about 2 lb. 3^ oz. avoirdu- 

 pois) of the insects, and a quarter of a franc for the same weight 

 of their eggs. At this rate twenty thousand francs were paid in 

 Marseilles, and twenty-five thousand in Aries, in the year 1613 ; 

 in 1824, five thousand five hundred and forty-two, and in 1825, 

 six thousand two hundred francs were paid in Marseilles. It is 

 stated that an active boy can collect from six to seven kilogram- 

 mes (or from 13 lb. 3 oz. 13.22 dr. to 15 lb. 7 oz. 2.09 dr.) of 

 eggs in one day. The locusts are taken by means of a piece of 

 stout cloth, carried by four persons, two of whom draw it rapidly 

 along, so that the edge may sweep over the surface of the soil, 

 and the two others hold up the cloth behind at an angle of forty- 

 five degrees.* This contrivance seems to operate somewhat like 

 a horse-rake, in gathering the insects into winrows or heaps, from 

 which they are speedily transferred to large sacks. A somewhat 

 similar plan has been successfully tried in this country, as appears 

 by an account extracted from the " Portsmouth Journal," and pub- 

 lished in the " New-England Farmer. f" It is there stated that, in 

 July 1826, Mr. Arnold Thompson, of Epsom, New Hampshire, 

 caught, in one evening, between the hours of eight and twelve, in 

 his own and his neighbour's grain fields, five bushels and three 



* See Annales de la Societe Enlomologique de France. Vol. II. pp. 486-489. 

 t Vol. V. p. 5. 



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