THE LOCUSTS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 268, 20 March 1873, Page 6

THE LOCUSTS.

For the first time in the history of Bendigo, Sandhurst has been invaded by a plague of locustp. Several weeks ago the advanced guard of the foe made their appearance, but the main body arrived on Saturday from the east. They came in clouds, and settled down on the richest and greenest vegetation in the district. The Camp Reserve was literally covered with them, and when disturbed by people passing through them they rose up in a dense body, and fluttered a few yards away, then settled again. Before many hours it presented a weary waste of withered stalks to view, every green leaf having been devoured, except on the trees. In the Back Creek Cricket Ground there was scarcely a square inch of ground on which there was not a locust. A match was played there on Saturday, and the fielders as they ran after the ball were almost bewildered by the insect swarm that rose around them. Allowing a square inch of ground to each locust there could not have been less than twelve million of these on one huudred yards square of the playing ground. Taking the same average for all the other green spots of Sandhurst, and the armies of this public enemy must be estimated by hundreds of millions. The amount of damage done by these voracious insects is something immense, and no wonder a rise in the price of dairy and farm produce is anticipatod. A large portion of the fine green sward of the cricket ground was during Saturday eaten as bare as the road, In a garden in Barnard-street the green tops, 18 inches high, of a bed of carrots about 15 feet square, were eaten close down in a night. During the whole of yesterday the air for a hundrsd feet high was alive with them, and. they still came flying up from the east, and continued on to the west, the forces on the ground being constantly recruited from those in the air, and it was singular to notice that above and below they all headed westward. Those on the ground appeared to be all full grown insects, but in the flying squadron they varied in size from the baby insect to the large and heavy father ; but all strong on the wing, and pursuing a somewhat zigzag flight. During yesterday a heavy shower of rain fell, and the large drops pelted thousands of the locusts to death. Fowls appear to consider locusts the daintiest bits they ever tasted, for they chased them continually, and cats, too, were evidently pleased in catching and enjoying them as an agreeable change of food.

Nothing succeeds like success, and there is no success like humbug. A vulgar illiterate Yankee named Peebles comes to Melbourne and lectures on Spiritualism. The Press denounce him as an ignorant charlatan, who doesn't even understand his own pseudoscience; but the public present him with a testimonial and a purse of a hundred and fifty sovereigns ! If he had been an accomplished scholar, lecturing on literature or genuine science, he would have talked to empty benches, and gone away with his purse considerably lighter than when he came. But as he simply happened to be a quack, a very poor quack, he is glorified with compliments and sent away laden with gold. Altogether they seem to be a strange people in Melbourne. Two traders have just been convicted there — on most extraordinary evidence we admit — of a conspiracy to defraud their creditors — a case, in the words of the judge who, tried it, " very dangerous to the community." They are punished by a heavy fine, which is immediately paid, and it is forthwith proposed to invite them to a public dinner ! What shall we hear next? That Messrs Mount and Morris have been presented with a service of plate, or Mr. Butters, another specimen of the men whom Melbourne delighted to honor, with a splendid diamond — warranted genuine. "Sydney Empire."