VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAX. 



65 



The value of birds has ah'eady been recognized at the 

 antipodes. Australian farmers have suffered greatly from 

 inroads of locusts upon their crops and pastures. 



The Australian correspondence of the Mark Lane Express 

 of March 7, 1892, had a paragraph relating to the value of 

 the Ibis to ftirmers during the locust incursions of that year 

 and the year previous. In the Glen Thompson district 

 several large flocks, one said to niunber fully five hundred 

 birds, were seen eating the young locusts in a wholesale 

 manner. Other insectivorous birds were flourishing upon 

 the same diet. Near Ballarat, Victoria, a swarm of locusts 

 was noted in a i)addock ; and just as it was feared that all 

 the sheep Avould have to l)e sold for want of grass, flocks of 

 Starlings, Spoonbills, and Ci^anes made their appearance, and 

 in a few da}' s made so complete a destruction of the locusts 

 that only about forty acres of grass were lost.^ 



American farmers have had many similar experiences. 

 When the Mormons first settled in I'tah their cro})S were 

 almost utterly destro3"ed by myriads of crickets that came 



Pig. 27. — The western cricket tliat destroyed the settlers' crops at Salt Lake. 

 Natural size; after Glover. 



down from the mountains. Hon. Geo. Q. Gannon, as tem- 

 porary chairman of the third irrigation congress, told how it 

 happened. The first yeai-'s crop having been destroyed, the 

 Mormons had sowed seed the second year. The crop prom- 

 ised well, but when again the crickets appeared, the people 

 were in danger of starvation. In describing the conditions 

 in 1848 Mr. Gannon says : — 



' Insect Life, Eiley and Howard, 1891-92, Vol. IV, p. 409. 



