VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAN. 65 
The value of birds has already 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 farmers during the locust incursions of that year 
and the year previous. In the Glen Thompson district 
several large flocks, one said to number 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 paddock; and just as it was feared that all 
the sheep would have to be sold for want of grass, flocks of 
Starlings, Spoonbills, and Cranes made their appearance, and 
in a few days made so complete a destruction of the locusts 
that only about forty acres of grass were lost.1 
American farmers have had many similar experiences. 
When the Mormons first settled in Utah their crops were 
almost utterly destroyed by myriads of crickets that came 
Fig. 2'7.—The western cricket that destroyed the settlers’ crops at Salt Lake. 
Natural size; after Glover. 
down from the mountains. Hon. Geo. Q. Cannon, as tem- 
porary chairman of the third irrigation congress, told how it 
happened. The first year’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. Cannon says : — 
1 Insect Life, Riley and Howard, 1891-92, Vol. IV, p. 409. 
