29 



(GRASSHOPPERS OR LOCUSTS. 



Br THB Rev. C. J. S. Bethune, M.A. 



Few, probably, of our Canadian fellow-countrymen are aware that the terrible Locust 

 " the scourge of nations," as it has been fitly termed, about whose destructive powers they 

 read such appalling accounts in books of Oriental travel, is one of the insect enemies that 

 some of the denizens o( our Domiuinn have to contend against. And yet it is too true— as 

 the records of the past season in our North-west Province of Manitoba abundantly prove. 

 The locusts (or grasshoppers, as they are incorrectly termed) have laid waste great tracts of 

 fertile country, and have brought ruiu and desolation to many an unhappy settler in that 

 far off region. 



It is much to be regretted — to quote our remarks made on a former occasion* that so 



much confusion exists in the popular use of terms in Natural Hi.story, and particularly in 

 entomology, in consequence of which very serious errors become matters of common faith 

 much mischief is alio .ed to go unheeded, and the innocent are oftentimes punished for the 

 guilty. The term " bug." for instance, is almost universally applied in the neighbouring 

 States, and very generally in this country, to every kind of insect, so that it is no uncommon 

 thing to hear a beautiful butterfly or lovely moth designated by the odious name of " bug,'" 

 whereas the appellation belongs exclusively to those foul-smelling sucking insects of the order 

 Htiiiiptera, which feed upon the juices of plants, and in some cases upon the blood of other 

 insects, of animals and man. Again, the larva of almost every kind of insect is called '^ the 

 grab;" larvae that burrow into the trunks of tree.i and timber, " t/ti- borer," and so on to any 

 extent. The con.sequence is that what is a remedy for one grub or borer, or so-called " bu^ " 

 is indiscriminately made use of for the destruction of every other grub, or borer, or " buf ," 

 unmindful that the old proverb may be read in this way also — " Wh.tt is one insecl'a meat is 

 anjther's poison," and that the treatment that will exterminate one injurious insect is some- 

 times perfectly harmless in the case of another. 



This confusion of terms is particularly unfortunate in the case of the insects that we 

 are now treating of. Every one in this country is perfectly familiar with what is commonly 



called a " grasshopper,'' but how very 

 few iire aware that what they term a 

 grasshopper, and see too often to think 

 much about, is really the same kind of 

 insect as the much dreaded, famine- 

 producing Locust, that constituted one 

 of the plagues of Egypt, and that is 

 an object of so much terror wherever 

 it prevails. A trie locust it never- 

 thele.'^s is, and it were well, for many 

 reasons, that our people became accus- 

 tomed to call it by its right name. 

 Our common species in this I'rovince, 

 while it does not possess the power of 

 ■uddenly appearing in vast numbers 

 and emigrating from place to place, 

 occasionally l)etomes greatly multiplied 

 and proves very destructive. The 

 western locust (or grasshopper), how- 

 ever, differing but very slightly from 

 our species, is, as we shall presently 

 shew, (|«ite as formidable u destroyer as its Oriental congener. 



Canada Farmer, 1867, page 87. 



