

■',- 



Photo by American Colony Photographers, Jerusalem 



the: locust (pupa) just before: its pinal moult and transformation into 

 thl full-grown flying insect 



The large wings of its future state are fully developed and neatly folded up in the four 

 membranous cases, resembling tiny wings (see text, pages 522 and 543) 



opposite side. At once all efforts were 

 turned in this direction, and the trap was 

 sunk into the lower edge of the field to- 

 ward which they were making; but no 

 sooner had it been set in place than the 

 locusts again changed their course. Not- 

 withstanding the laborious task involved, 

 the trap had to be moved, during which 

 process it was nip and tuck to keep the 

 locusts from escaping. Once, however, 

 they made in the right direction, they 

 jumped, hundreds at a time, into this 

 death trap. 



The evening hours were now upon us ; 

 the locusts, weary from being driven and 

 benumbed from the cool breezes, seemed 

 to near the trap exhausted, while those 

 behind kept piling up till the earth for a 

 small space was covered layers deep. To 

 facilitate matters, with spade and rake 

 they were scraped into the trap, now 

 constantly being emptied. 



Thus in about an hour's time four large 

 sacks full were caught and destroyed, 

 each containing no less than 100,000 of 

 these insects. Many escaped and made 

 for a near-by thorny patch, on which was 

 now piled more dry sticks and thistles, 



which when set afire burned alive many 

 thousands more. The above is but an 

 average example showing how and in 

 what quantities they were caught. 



To overcome the difficulty of the labor 

 and time required in shifting the sunken 

 trap, Yankee ingenuity again came to the 

 rescue. An old box, tin-lined, was set 

 on top of the ground, with an inclined 

 plane leading up to it. The locusts, 

 which can make ascents so much easier 

 than descents, were driven into it just as 

 easily as into the sunken trap. It was so 

 quickly and easily placed that it proved 

 to be a great success, the only drawback, 

 as with the older type, being the labor of 

 emptying it and the numbers that un- 

 avoidably escaped. The next develop- 

 ment was a tin hopper set on legs high 

 enough to admit of fastening a sack be- 

 low. To this the inclined plane was sim- 

 ilarly attached. Thus the locusts jumped 

 directly into the bag, which, when full, 

 was readily detached and replaced with 

 another, while the full sacks, not a locust 

 of which could escape, were so handy to 

 carry away for destruction. 



After over two weeks' steady and re- 



536 



