MEANS OF DESTROYING THE GRASSHOPPER. 217 



small town of Konincha, about 29,000 bushels of them were buried 

 in the ground without any perceptible diminution.* 



At the time of the flight of the locusts through the passes of the 

 Bukovina, in the year 1780, an attempt was made to destroy them by 

 discharges of cannon. The flight was indeed dispersed in places ; 

 but, dividing into several small portions, the whole flew across the 

 Dniester, and some of them alighted on fields in Podolia. 



The driving away of locusts on the wing with noises and cries not 

 only does not always answer expectation, f but through the hope of 

 success it renders the people careless. It is also injurious in this 

 respect, that if it saves one cultivator it infallibly exposes his neigh- 

 bor to loss. Hence people living along the coast endeavor to drive the 

 locusts into a sea or lake ; but even this rarely succeeds. Sometimes 

 after they have been driven into a wood, it has been set on fire ; whereby 

 greater loss has been occasioned than by the insects themselves. But 

 in these instances the people's dread was so great, that they seemed 

 to imagine that, by extirpating the locust, they would annihilate some 

 sort of evil spirit, hobgoblin, or destructive monster. 



Confounding almost everywhere the means of destroying the footed 

 locust with those of defence against the attacks of the winged insect, 

 cultivators commonly complain of the inefficacy of the measures 

 adopted. For this others have been to blame aa well as themselves. 



In Morocco, where people have been acquainted with locusts and 

 subjected to their ravages at some part of the year time out of mind, 

 it has long been known as a peculiarity of the footed insect to keep 

 advancing in a certain direction. Accordingly, they endeavor to stop 

 its progress by intersecting its line of march Avith wet or dry trenches, 

 filled with combustible materials, into v/hich the insects are driven. 

 These ditches often serve as aqueducts for inundating their rice-fields. 

 This mode is also known in Algiers and throughout Europe. But as 

 the trenches are in general laid out irregularly, and there is neither 

 time nor means for making them so deep and wide that the locusts 

 cannot leap across them, or climb or swim out, the object is rarely 

 attained. Usually the locusts swim across the water by thousands ; 

 and where fire is spread about, in consequence of the great quantity of 

 locusts that are swept down and driven together, it is extinguished, 

 and the insects crawl away. 



Others drive into places occupied by the locusts troops of horses, 

 flocks of sheep, and herds of cattle, that they may trample down their 

 uninvited guests. But the locust is nimble ; and even were it not so, 

 horses and other beasts trample upon and crush them with reluctance. 

 Landowners, not taking into consideration that the locusts are hardly 

 ever destroyed by such means, and that the men and cattle tread down 

 scarcely less grain than the insects would consume, constantly have 

 recourse to this practice. They do not reflect that, by burning up the 



* This labor was entirely superfluous ; because if the locusts are killed ami put into a 

 bag, they cannot ilo any further injury; and by burying them in the ground, like infected 

 garments, we only lose an excellent material for enriching the soil. 



t It is known that neither such noises nor the firing of cannon, nor any other power 

 whatever, is able either to stop or drive away large bodies of locusts. 



