41 



two or three times very late in the autumn. Special attention should also be given to bar- 

 spots in the fields.where'not unfrequently great quantities of egg-tubes may remain unobserved." 

 This plan of deeply ploughing under the eggs of the grasshoppers, or of ploughing them up so 

 as to expose them to all the changes of the weather, has been found very eflFective in Mani- 

 toba and other places. 



(d) " Breeding large quantities of domestic fowls and training them to feed on young 

 locusts, is exceedingly advantageous to the husbandman." Geese, chickens, turkeys and 

 guinea-fowl are especially mentioned. This plan would be cf very slight use as a protection 

 against the migrating swarms of locusts, but it might be of some little value in places where 

 they breed. It is well known that a Inrge brood of turkeys is invaluable to a farmer where 

 the common red-legged locust abound.s. 



(e) If the locusts settle anywhere in a thick mass, large numbers may be destroyed in 

 the evening, when they are quiet, by means of heavy iron or wooden rollers drawn by horses 

 or oxen, thi.s method might be of some slight advantage if generally adopted, but usually, 

 by nightfall, most of the damage is done. 



A large number of other methods are mentioned, but they are entirely inapplicable to the 

 vast and thinly populated regions of the west. 



A remedy is much employed, on the other hand, in America which could not be made 

 use of in Russia, viz., fire. It is only during dry and very hot weather that the invasions 

 take place. When a swarm has once alighted and has commenced the work of destruction it 

 is often practicable to set fire to the fields and crops in places and thus kill or drive away 

 the destroyer. In this case the remedy is almost as bad as the disease, but yet it has been 

 adopted in many instances with good results. 



Noises made by trumpets, guns, cannons, &c., sometimes drive away a small body of 

 locusts, but they are utterly useless when the invasion takes place on a large scale. 



On the whole, it seems as if man can do but very little to ward off the attacks of thi.s 

 fearful scourge. Still it is proper that every effort should be made to find out the exact 

 habits of the insect, and the particular localities from which it emanates; it is fitting, too, that 

 no means should be left untried that affords any prospect of lessening the destruction that 

 they occasion. The Arabian fable we cannot but feel, has much truth at the bottom of it ; they 

 represent a locust as saying to Mahomet, " We are the army of the Great God ; we produce 

 ninety -nine eggs, if the hundred were completed we should consume the whole earth and all 

 that is in it." While the people of the West are in the hands of Providence to protect them 

 from such mighty armies as these, they can best help themselves by going to the root of the 

 evil — that is to say, by reducing to the utmost extent the numbers of eggs that are laid for 

 future broods. 



After all the accounts that wc have given of these insects, we feel that nothing can equal 

 in sublimity and correctness the description afforded by the Prophet Joel, ii. 2 — 11. 



■' A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the morning 

 spread upon'thc mountains : a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, 

 neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire de- 

 vourcth before them and behind them a flame burneth : the land is as the garden of 

 Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness ; yea, and nothing shall escape 

 them. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains shall they leap, like the noise 

 of a flame of fire that devouretb the stubble ; as a strong people set in battle .nrray. Before 

 their face the people shall be much pained ; all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run 

 like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march 

 every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks, neither shall one thrust another, 

 they shall walk every one in his path, and when they full upon the sword they shall not be 

 wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city, they shall run upon the wall, they shall 

 climb up upon the houses, they shall enter in at the windows like a thief The earth shall 

 quake before them, the heavens shall tremble, the .sun and the moon shall be dark, and the 

 stars shall withdraw tl-eir shining, and the Lord sha'l utter Fits vc ice before His army, for 

 His camp is very grc.it, frr He is strong that exccutcth His Word, for the day of the Lord is 

 great and very terrible, and who can abide it ?" 



While the foregoing ^aper was pa.ssing through the printer's hands, wc cut from the Albany 

 Country Gfntkrmm, the fol'owing official statement of the misery caused by the plague of 



