214 MEANS OF DESTROYING THE GEASSHOPPEK. 



ON TEE MEANS OF DESTEOYINO THE GRASSHOPPER. 



BY V. MOTSCHULSKY. 



Translated from the Eussian by Professor \Vm. W. Turner. 



The tendency to an equilibrium in all things is a law of nature, and 

 accordingly this law holds good in regard to the locusts.* Whole gene- 

 rations of them succumb to the climatic influences of those countries to 

 which, impelled by hunger, they betake themselves. Winds and storms 

 not unfrequently cast vast swarms of them into lakes and seas, and other 

 millions perish in crossing rivers. Frogs, lizards, and various birds, 

 especially of the starling, blackbird, lark, crow, jackdaw, stork, and 

 other species, devour them with great avidity. Among these is the 

 so-called rose-colored starling, {Gracula rosea, L.,) of a shiny black 

 color, with a whitish red back and breast, resembling at a distance our 

 black starling with the coat of a magpie. It breeds in great flocks in 

 southeastern Russia, especially about Orenburg, and throughout Asia 

 Minor, where it is known by the appellation oi samarmog or semermer. 

 As soon as it perceives at a distance a flight of locusts, it immediately 

 pursues them ; and in the evening,, when the latter alight on the 

 ground, the destroying and devouring begin without loss of time, and 

 continue as long as any remain. According to the popular tradition 

 of the Asiatics, these birds are said to abound about St. James's 

 Well,t on Mount Ararat, and always to follow its water. Accordingly 

 in Georgia and in Asia Minor, particularly in Damascus, Aleppo, and 

 Mosul, speculators sell water from the above mentioned well to be 

 used lor alluring the samarmog when the locusts make their appear- 

 ance. But the inhabitants of those countries now place no great faith 

 in this sympathetic means, but rely in preference on other modes of 

 destruction. In the south ot France, according to the testimony of the 

 learned Solier, the common European blackbird (Turdus merula, L.) 

 takes the place of our rose-colored starling, and produces great devas- 

 tation among the Italian locusts. In Africa, and especially in the Isle 

 of France, there is found still a third species of starling, {Gracula gryl- 

 livora, Daud.,) a cinnamon-colored bird with a blackish head and 

 white belly, which likewise pursues and destroys the locust. In all 

 the places where the birds show themselves thus useful to the inhabit- 

 ants, to shoot and catch them is regarded as a crime. In ancient 

 Egypt, the ibis was counted sacred, because it destroyed quantities of 

 reptiles and injurious insects, especially locusts. In the south of 

 France one of the birds that destroys the locust is known by the name 



■■- The term " locust " tised in this article is applied to what is called in this country, the 

 grasshopper. The '^cicada," or locust of America, is an entirely different insect. 



■f- The well and the monastery situated near it were buried in the year 18-10 by an 

 earthquake. 



