Packard.] 
EDIBLE INSECTS. 
121 
helplessly to the ground. They are also, he says, collected 
by cartloads when they have retired to rest. “ The locusts, 
after being partially roasted, are eaten fresh, or they are 
dried in the hot ashes, and then stored away for future emer¬ 
gencies. The natives reduce them also to powder, or meal, 
by means of two stones or a wooden mortar, which powder, 
when mixed with water, produces a kind of soup or stir¬ 
about. I have tasted locusts prepared in various ways, but 
I cannot say that I have found them very palatable. But 
they must contain a vast deal of nourishment, since the poor 
people thrive wonderfully on them.” He also states that 
“ the Cape Colony has been particularly subject to this 
dreadful scourge, which is 
invariably followed by fam¬ 
ine. The inroads of the 
locusts are periodical; ac¬ 
cording to Pringle, about 
once every fifteen years. 
In 1808, after having laid 
waste a considerable portion _ 
of the country, they disap¬ 
peared and did not return 
until 1824. They then re- Destructive Grasshoppers.. 
mained for several years but in 1830 took their departure.” 
The locust is truly migratory, the undeveloped, partially 
winged young moving from one region to another. He 
quotes from Barrow, who says that “the larvae at the same 
time were emigrating to the northward. The column of 
these imperfect insects passed the houses of two of our party, 
who assured me that it continued moving forward without 
any interruption, except by night, for more than a month.” 
Of very similar habits is our red-legged grasshopper 
(Caloptenus femur-rubnim, Fig. 87, b). It appears at inter¬ 
vals in immense swarms. In 1871 it was very destructive to 
grass in northern Maine, seriously damaging the hay crop. 
25 
Fig. 87. 
