122 HALF HOURS AYITII INSECTS. L^acicard. 



It has also swarmed in Canada. Dr. Harris enumerates its 

 visitations in New England in the last century when it de- 

 voured every green thing. The habits of this species are 

 not well known, except that it appears in midsummer in 

 the winged state. The wingless larvae appear in June, and, 

 as Harris recommends, hay crops should be mown early, 

 before the insects fly in swarms. The last of summer they 

 couple and lay their eggs in holes in the earth, Avhere they 

 are hatched in the spring. 



As Harris suggests, this insect can only be kept under by 

 concerted action on the part of farmers. "In the south of 

 France the people make a business, at certain seasons of the 

 year (probably in the autumn and late in the spring), of col- 

 lecting locusts and their eggs, the latter being turned out of 

 the ground in little masses, cemented and covered with a 

 sort of gum in Avhich they are enveloped by the insects." 

 Various forms of drag-nets can be invented for collecting 

 them in large numbers, and run, if necessary, through a field 

 by horse-power. The inventive genius of our farmers will 

 easily suggest methods of gathering these insects by the 

 bushel, when they can be thrown into hot water, and fed to 

 swine. An entomological friend has found by his own ex- 

 perience that roasted grasshoppers are excellent eating — 

 " better than frogs." Only let some enterprising genius of 

 the kitchen once set the example of offering to his customers 

 roasted grasshoppers, rare-done, and fricasseed canker worms 

 (for we have it on the word of an entomologist that cater- 

 pillars are pleasing to the palate of man), and these droves 

 of entomological beeves will perchance supplant their ver- 

 tebrate rivals at the shambles, and instead of cattle fairs, 

 we shall have grasshopper festivals, and county caterpillar 

 shows. 



The Caloptenus spretas of Uhler (Fig. 87 a) appears in 

 immense numbers in the country between the Mississippi 

 and the Rockj' Mountains, and extending from the Saskatch- 



26 



