HORRORS OF THE LOCUST.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 27 September 1924, Page 9

HORRORS OF THE LOCUST.

TROUBLE IN SOUTH AFRICA. A plague of locusts lias been adding recently to the troubles of the South African farmer. The visitation (says Christopher Beck in the Daily Mail) usually occurs during a long drought; the swarm devours every green thing from the grass and farm crops to the leaves of the trees. But this is only a. part' of the mischief done by these pestilent insects, for they are in themselves the foulest and most abominable cicatmes under the sun. However gioat the heat, every window must be closed, tor otherwise the swarm will speedily render any room uninhabitable, fouling it beyond belief. Anv open well, must be most carefully coveieil, for if this is not. done the-bodies of the locusts, drowned by the thousand, will rapidly putrefy and poison the water. A well thus infected cannot beused again until it has been pumped out and thoroughly cleansed. A big swarm of locusts will not leave a trace of green in all the countryside, but even when the invasion is not on so large a scale the grass that remains ■is so poisoned that horses will rather starve than touch it.

The only domestic creatures that appear to welcome a visitation of locusts are the poultr3 r , which gobble them down by the score and fatten rapidly on the diet. This is no help to fh 3 f aimer, but rather a curse, for there is something in the insect which taints the flesn of the ducks and chickens and makes them unfit for human food. More than this, even their eggs are affected. Open an egg laid by a hen that has been feeding on locusts, and you will find that' the yolk is quite rod. while the flavour of the egg it-.elf is so strong tJiat no one blit, a negro will eat .it. Hogs will eat 10.-ust.s and here again, the effect is dmastrous. for. weeks later, when kil’od the pork is found tc be tainted.