Locust

“ I have just witnessed a moving spectacle: the last moult of a locust; the emergence of the adult from its larval envelope. It was magnificent. I am speaking of the Grey Locust, the colossus among our acridians, [10] which is often seen among the vines in September when the grapes are gathered. By its size—and it grows as long as a man's finger—it lends itself to observation better than any other of its tribe.
The larva, disgustingly fat, like a rude sketch of the perfect insect, is commonly of a tender green ”

“ Trees live for 40 or more years, in good soil and favorable regions, before showing signs of old age.
One of the essentials of good soil for growing locust is the presence of nitrifying bacteria, as indicated by the abundance of nodules on the roots. These bacteria seem to have a direct bearing on the growth and therefore the extent of attack by the locust borer. In places where the roots show relatively few nodules, the insect infectation is more serious than in places where the root nodules are abundant. Additional information about growth and insect attack is needed for different regions. ”

“ The locust is a medium-sized tree developing a slender straight trunk when grown alongside of others; see Fig. 82.
Range: Canada and United States.
Soil and location: The locust will grow on almost any soil except a wet, heavy one. It requires plenty of light.
Enemies: The locust borer has done serious damage to this tree. The grubs of this insect burrow in the sapwood and kill the tree or make it unfit for commercial use. The locust miner is a beetle which is now annually defoliating trees of this species in large numbers. ”

“ Insects—The Locust-The two migratory Locusts at rest and on the wing—The Locust swarms—Gordon Cumming's account—Progress of the insect hosts—Vain attempts to check them—Tossed up and down as a Locust—Effect of the winds on the insect—The east and the west winds—Locusts used for food—Ancient and modern travellers—The food of John the Baptist.
Of the Locusts there are several species in Palestine, two of which are represented in the accompanying plate. Those on the ground are the common Migratory Locusts, while those on the wing, which have long heads, are a species of Truxalis. ”

“ A locust is a species of grasshopper that occasionally increases greatly in number, and that moves about in swarms to seek fresh food. There are many Orthoptera that occasionally greatly increase in numbers, and that then extend their usual area more or less; and some Acridiidae multiply {292}locally to a great extent—very often for one or two seasons only,—and are then called locusts. The true migratory locusts are species that have gregarious habits strongly developed, and that move over considerable distances in swarms. ”

“ The Hebrew אַרְבֶּה, the locust proper, from רָבָה, to multiply, is used chiefly for the ravaging locust, as Exod. x. 12., probably a larger kind; while חָגַב, which is translated grasshopper in our version above, Vulg. locusta, Sept. ἀκρίδες, rendered by Fuerstius (Heb. Conc.) locusta gregaria, is mostly used as implying diminutiveness, as Numbers, xiii. 33., and but once as a devouring insect, 2 Chro. vii. 13. It is translated indiscriminately, in our version, locust and grasshopper; all these were edible and permitted to the Jews. ”

“ A dense growth of locust growing in deep, fertile soil well supplied with moisture, or locust trees with trunks shaded by slower growing heavy-foliaged species of trees as a rule are found to be thriftier and less subject to infestation.
(6) Protect young black locust from all grazing by livestock. It is a legume and palatable at all times of the year, and subject to heavy browsing, particularly in the dormant season, when green foliage is absent. Cattle and horses, as well as sheep and goats, browse freely on the locust twigs and branches and often break down young trees. ”

“ The native countries of the Locust are Central Asia and the North of Africa, but they migrate every year to Europe, where they destroy every green thing they meet with. Other species of Locusts are met with in various parts of the world, which, like the true migratory Locust, pass from place to place in vast flocks, causing immense damage wherever they take up their temporary abode. ”

“ The young Locust finds above him, when he comes out of the egg, not rough sand and hardened earth, but a straight tunnel, with solid walls that keep all difficulties away. This ascending-shaft is full of foam, which the larva can easily penetrate, and which will bring him quite close to the surface. ”

“ Pray, have you the seventeen-year locust in Concord? The air here is filled with their din. They come out of the ground at first in an imperfect state, and, crawling up the shrubs and plants, the perfect insect bursts out through the back. They are doing great damage to the fruit and forest trees. ”

“ The most destructive locust is the migratory locust (Locusta migratoria) , which causes wholesale destruction in the East. Large pits are dug across the line of advance of these great insect armies to stop them when in the larval or wingless stage, and even huge bonfires are lighted to check their flight when adult. ”

“ The large hard shelled seeds resist attack by most animals. Seemingly they are used by white-footed mice, [Pg 122] as they have often been found stored in the nest cavities of these mice, beneath rocks or in logs.
Gleditsia triacanthos.—Honey locust is at present one of the more important species of trees on the area. There are scattered locusts throughout most parts of the woodland. In the bottomland fields there are groves and scattered trees of medium to large size. On south slopes honey locust, osage orange and red elm form thickets. ”

“ The planting of black locust involves a risk of some damage and, in some localities, of serious loss because of the locust borer. In this connection too much emphasis cannot be laid upon the desirability of getting the advice of the State forester, of the State forestry organization, or of the State extension forester who is connected with the agricultural extension service. By planting on good soils, by interplanting with other heavy-foliaged trees, or by moderate spacing and good cultivation, black locust can often be grown with fair to good success in insect-infested localities. ”

“ Captain Stockenstrom, in a paper in the South African Journal on these insects, observes, ‘Not only the locust-bird, but every animal, domestic and wild, contributes to the destruction of the locust swarms; fowls, sheep, horses, dogs, antelopes, and almost every living thing, may be seen devouring them with equal greediness; whilst the half-starved Bushmen, and even some of the colonial Hottentots, consider them a great luxury, consuming great quantities fresh, and drying abundance for future emergencies. Great havoc is also committed among the locusts by their own kindred ”

“ The Locust mother is not a model of affection.
Others do not forsake their eggs so recklessly. I can name the ordinary Locust with the blue wings striped with black (Œdipoda cœrulescens, Lin.) ; also Pachytylus nigrofasciatus, De Geer, whose cognomen lacks point, for it ought to suggest either the malachite-green patches of the costume or the white cross of the corselet.
Both, when laying their eggs, adopt the [382] same attitude as the Italian Locust. The abdomen is driven perpendicularly into the soil; the rest of the body partly disappears under the sliding sand. ”

“ All are vegetable feeders, and, as in all orthopterous insects, have an incomplete metamorphosis, so that their destructive powers are continuous from the moment of emergence from the egg till death. The migratory locust (Pachytylus cinerascens) may be considered only an exaggerated grasshopper, and the Rocky Mountain locust (Caloptenus spretus) is still more entitled to the name. ”

“ In other places the word ἀκρὶς in the Septuagint corresponds to חָגַב, in the Hebrew, as in Numb. xiii. 33.; Is. xl. 22.; and that this was a species of locust which was eatable, appears from Lev. xi. 21, 22.:
"Yet there may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all fours, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; even those of them ye may eat, the locust (אֶת הָאַרְבֶּה, τὸν βροῦχον) after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper (אֶת הֶחָגַב, τὴν ἀκρίδα) after his kind." ”

“ The introduction of fried and tinned locust as an epicurean delicacy would be a boon to suffering humanity, by supplying industrial compensation to the inhabitants of districts subject to periodical plagues of locust invasion. The idea of eating them appears repulsive at first, so would that of eating such creepy-crawly things as shrimps, if no adventurous hero had made the first exemplary experiment. ”

“ The locust is bred in the prairie tracts of the rainless district, in the loose, warm, gravelly soil, in the comparatively open spots, rather than in the thick grass, in different parts of a "permanent region," the area of which is not less than five hundred thousand square miles. The best single means of exterminating the broods would be to burn the grass while they are in the larva state ”

“ The young locust grows very fast, and it is mainly during the period of growth that it consumes vegetation. When once the animal has attained its full size, it becomes comparatively inert, and its capacity for destruction is vastly diminished. If the swarm of young locusts arrives before the middle of April, when the rainy season is not quite over, the first showers revive the plants that have been devoured almost to the root with surprising rapidity. Perennial species throw out new buds, and are soon again covered with leaf and flower ”

“ The green portion, or chlorenchyma, has been eaten by an insect known as a locust leaf miner. The most common species in the Eastern States is a sawfly (Odontota dorsalis) but there are known to be one or more closely related insects that mine the green in the leaves. The effect is to retard the growth of the tree slightly, but nothing more serious. It is not practicable to attempt to check the insect. ”

“ The insects most injurious to the rural industry of the garden and the ploughland do not multiply in or near the woods. The locust, which ravages the East with its voracious armies, is bred in vast open plains which admit the full heat of the sun to hasten the hatching of the eggs, gather no moisture to destroy them, and harbor no bird to feed upon thelarvae. ”

“ The locust which causes such havoc to vegetation in Africa is said to be a different species to that common to Asia, where also, though perhaps not to the same extent, it commits great ravages.
The Cape Colony has been particularly subject to this dreadful scourge, which is invariably followed by famine. The inroads of the locusts are periodical; according to Pringle, about once every fifteen years. ”

“ The locust is in itself a small and weak insect, yet it is well known what mighty and terrible work can be accomplished by them when they unite. They stand as an example of the wonderful effect of perfect combination and unanimity in action. ”

“ The locust, being larger, more numerous, and more greedy than the ants, do much harm. If they find a town in their path, through it they go. Countless numbers may be killed, but there are countless numbers to follow. Is a river in the way? Into it they tumble, and when enough dead bodies lie on the water to make a raft, the other locusts pass safely over. ”

“ The mother locust has a queer way of making a nest for her eggs. She extends the end of her body till it is like an auger, and with this she bores a deep hole in the earth. She chooses spots near fields of ripening rice or sugar cane, so the young locusts, as they hatch out, will be near a good supply of food; for at first they have no wings and cannot go in search of it.
After the visit of the locusts, Alila went carefully around the edges of the fields with the other workmen. They wished to see if any signs of young locusts could be found. ”

“ Moffat thinks the Locust not bad food, and, when well fed, almost as good as shrimps.412
The plan of gathering Locusts by night is occasionally attended with danger. “It has happened that in gathering them people have been bitten by venomous reptiles. On one occasion a woman had been traveling for several miles with a large bundle of Locusts on her head, when a serpent, which had been put into the sack with them, found its way out. ”

“ It spreads by underground shoots and is useful for holding and reclaiming badly gullied lands. The usefulness of the black locust is, however, very greatly limited by the fact that it is subject to great damage from an insect known as the locust borer. ”

“ It is not known that the parasites have any power of remaining in abeyance as the locust eggs may do; and the bird destroyers of the locusts may greatly diminish in numbers during a year when the Insects are not numerous; so that a disproportion of numbers between the locusts and their destroyers may arise, and for a time the locusts may increase rapidly, while the parasites are much inferior to them in numbers. ”

“ Birds of almost every description, more especially storks and kites, are seen devouring them greedily.
The great enemy of the locust, however, is the locust-bird, or the “spring-haan vogel,” as it is termed by the colonists. This is described as a species of thrush, about the size of a swallow, and is a constant attendant on the insect. It is even said to build its nest and rear its young in the midst of locusts, which, moreover, occasionally prey on each other; for when a locust becomes maimed or crippled, its companions instantly pounce upon and devour it. ”