29 



GRASSHOPPERS OR LOCUSTS. 



By the Rev. C. J. S. Bethune, M.A. 



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

 " the soour}j;e of nations," as it has been fitly termed, about whose dcstiuctive powers they 

 read such nppailing accounts in books of Oriental travel, is one of the insect enemies tliat 



some of the denizens oi our Dominion have to contend ajjainst. 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 ruin 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 ocea.sion* that so 



much confusion exists in the popular use of terms in Natural History, and particularly in 

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

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

 guilty. Tlie term "bug," for instance, is almost universally applied in the neiahbourino- 

 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 •' buL', ' 

 whereas the a'ppellation belongs exclusively to those foul-smelling sucking insects of the order 

 J/niiijiierii, which feed upon the juices of plants, and in some cases upon the blood of other 

 insects, of animals and man. Agiin, the larva of almost every kind of insect is called " t/ie 

 grab;" larva; that burrow into the trunks of trees and timber, "the borer," and so on to any 

 extent. The consequence is that what is a remedy for one grub or borer, or so called " busr," 

 is indiscriminitcly mide u>c of for the destruction of every other grub, or borer, or " buo- " 

 unmindful that the old proverb may be read in this way also — " What is one itisict's meat is 

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

 times perfectly harmlc-s in the case of another. 



This confu.sion 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 are 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 Locuj«t, that constituted one 

 of the plagues of Egypt, and that is 

 an object of so much terror wlierevcr 

 it prevails. A tr le locust it never- 

 theless is, and it were well, for miiny 

 reasons, that our people became accu'!- 

 tomed to call it by its right nnnie. 

 (hir common species iu this I'roviiiCe, 

 while it does not possess the ]*wer of 

 suddenly apjiearing in vast numbi rs 

 and emigrating fn m place to pbce, 

 occasionally becomes greatly multiplied 

 and proves very de>truelive. The 

 western locust (or gra.'^shopicr). how- 

 ever, diflfering but very slightly from 

 our species, is, as we sh.-.ll presently 

 shew, (juite as formidable a destroyer as its Oriental congener. 



* CancK/a Farmtr, 1867, pa^e 87. 



