General Considerations. 



227 



people of other nations will scarcely touch, while the very 

 animal that is highly esteemed in one part of the country 

 is not infrequently rejected in another section as poisonous. 

 Prejudice wields a most powerful influence in all our 

 actions. It is said that the Irish during the famine of 

 1857, would rather starve than eat our corn bread, but on 

 the other hand, as we have already seen (ante, p. 35), the 

 Mormons in 1855, from necessity, really subsisted on a 

 locust diet ; and if what I have here written shall, in the 

 future, induce some of our Western people to profit by the 

 liint, and avoid suffering or actual starvation, I shall not 

 have written in vain. 



UNNECESSARY ALARM CAUSED BY COMPARATIVELY HARM- 

 LESS SPECIES. 



The sense of apprehension of 

 further danger is great in a 

 community that has suffered 

 severely from any disaster what- 

 soever, and locusts which under 

 ordinary circumstances would 

 attract no attention are quite 

 frequently looked upon with 

 alarm and suspicion during years 

 of visitation by spretus. Mr. 

 E. W. Kruze, of Sedalia, Mo., 

 sent me, in 1875, a very large, 

 short- winged locust found in his 

 locality, with an inquiry as to 

 its name, and whether there 

 w^as any connection between its 

 appearance and the late in- 

 vasion of spretus. The same 

 species was also sent me from 

 the same locality by Mr. Geo. 



