REMEDIES. 189 



enveloped by the insects. Rewards are offered and paid for 

 their collection, half a franc being given for a kilogramme 

 (about 2 lb. 3£ oz. avoirdupois) of the insects, and a quarter 

 of a franc for the same weight of their eggs. At this rate 

 twenty thousand francs were paid in Marseilles, and twenty- 

 five thousand in Aries, in the year 1613 ; in 1824, five thou- 

 sand five hundred and forty- two, and in 1825, six thousand 

 two hundred francs were paid in Marseilles. It is stated that 

 an active boy can collect from six to seven kilogrammes (or 

 from 131b. 3oz. 13.22 dr. to 151b. 7 oz. 2.09 dr.) of eggs 

 in one day. The locusts are taken by means of a piece of 

 stout cloth, carried by four persons, two of whom draw it 

 rapidly along, so that the edge may sweep over the surface of 

 the soil, and the two others hold up the cloth behind at an 

 angle of forty-five degrees.* This contrivance seems to oper- 

 ate somewhat like a horse-rake, in gathering the insects into 

 winrows or heaps, from which they are speedily transferred 

 to large sacks. 



A somewhat similar plan has been successfully tried in 

 this country, as appears by an account extracted from the 

 " Portsmouth Journal," and published in the " New Eng- 

 land Farmer."f It is there stated that, in July, 1826, Mr. 

 Arnold Thompson, of Epsom, New Hampshire, caught, in 

 one evening, between the hours of eight and twelve, in his 

 own and his neighbor's grain-fields, five bushels and three 

 pecks of grasshoppers, or more properly locusts. " His mode 

 of catching them was by attaching two sheets together, and 

 fastening them to a pole, which was used as the front part of 

 the drag. The pole extended beyond the width of the sheets, 

 so as to admit persons at both sides to draw it forward. At 

 the sides of the drag, braces extended from the pole to raise 

 the back part considerably from the ground, so that the 

 grasshoppers could not escape. After running the drag about 

 a dozen rods with rapidity, the braces were taken out, and 



* See Annales de la Societe Entomologique de France, Vol. IT. pp. 486-489. 

 t Vol. V. p. 5. 



