The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-04-11
BY FRANK c. CARPENTER

into the swarm and I found he knew what he was talking about. The locusts were flying high enough not to affect tho movement of the train, and we went right through them. This is not always pos sib'e. When they fly near the ground they sometimes cover the track and the cars crush them, making the rails Sc greasy that the wheels will not catch. They just fly around and around while the cars stand still. In such cases two of the brakemen often sit on the cow catcher, holding brooms on the rails to brush off the loeusts as the cars move. Sometimes they sand the rails to make the train go. The swarm of which 1 spoke so dimmed the light that we seemed to be travelling under a tent and not in the open.''
 l asked Mr. smith to glve me some word pictures of the loeests in action. He repl'ed
 They are very much like our grass happers, but are about twice as large. Their general color is gray and they look like small birds as they fly through the air. They are not dangerous, but when they hy low and hit you in the face it is annoying. The locusts are prolific and a great part of the damage is caused not by the grown-ups but by the babies. As they move over the country the females bore holes in the ground with their tails and lay eggs there. Each female will lay a bag of from 5o to 100 eggs and month or so later these will have matched out into young locusts who crawl out and begin their devastating march, Their parents have already eaten up the most of the crop and the babies eat what has grown up in the meantime. They crawl and hop over the ground, consuming everything as they go. They keep on crawling until their wings grow. They go in great hordes, climbing fences and entering the houses. Dr. Habenicht told me that they ate the lace curtains from his windows, and that they sometimes at tack the babies and bite them until the blood runs from the little one's ears As soon as their wings grow they fly away"
 Where do the locusts come from?'' asked MT. Smith.
 No one knows. Some say they are from Brazil, some from Bolivia, some from Paraguay and the Argentine chaco. We only know that they come from the north and northwest They come in Au-
 
 south as the provinces of Salta and Jujui and the territories of Formosa and Chaeo, and from there they spread over the republic. After a. time there are other swarms formed by the young matched from eggs left by the first swarms, and as the weather grows warmer there are still other swarms until the whole terri tory is overrun It seems to me that the only way to combat the locusts is by going to the country of their origin and studying their life history there. Scien- lists should investigate the biological history of the insect in Bolivia and Brazil, and seek to find some means of preyen- ten. As it is we are fighting them as best we can, but we working in the dark
 What means are used to combat the pest?',
 I've have long had laws for the ex- termination of locusts, and the govern ment is now spending from s1,0o0,0o0 to s5,000,0oo a year in fighting them. We at tack them in the swarms and in the egg, and when travelling as young over tine country. The fiers are caught in bags and clothes during the hours of low temperature and destroyed. The places where they settle are fired, and where they have laid their eggs the whole zone is often rlowed up In other places the GEES are dug up with picks, and if the ground is wet animals are driven over the soil to destroy them. At times they are gathered in sacks, and 1t is not un- common to have 500 wagon loads of sacked loousts brought to one of the receiving stations in a single day. In some places the government pays 15 or 20 cents a sack and a man may make S15 night catching locusts. The sacking is usually during the mating season, when they do not fly"
 Another method of protecting the grain fields is to surround them with little fences of tin or sheet iron These fences may be IS inches or two feet in height but it Is impossible for the young loeusts to crawl over thsm. They will come in hordes to the fence and then travel alonG it in both directions. At every 800 feet holes about a yard deep are dug, and these are so bordered with tin that the locusts drop into the holes and cannot get out The agricultural department has spent millions of dollars for such means of defense and it has now on hand enough of such barriers to reach hali way around the world. There are also other locust traps. In places the crawl CTS are scooped up with scrapers and killed and attempts have been made to >destroy them with solutions of kerosene, arsenic and creosote.
 Another insect pest of Argentina is the ant. There is one species that is not much bigger than the head of a large