While the king penguin does not build a nest, this is not true of all the tribe. The Magellan penguin makes large and very deep burrows in the peat banks, so that often the ground is hollowed in every direction. They have a singular habit, found among a few land birds, of collecting various objects. Thus, in front of the opening of their burrows are found numbers of pebbles of different sizes and colors, which are brought up from the shore, apparently simply for ornaments or objects to please the eye.
THE LOCUST.
<!-- image -->"SOME years ago," said a famous traveler, "I took an extended drive through the best parts of Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli. I made the trip in the course of the winter, and as the hot season approached I found myself in Algiers, and ready to return to the North. Our last ride was about two hundred miles across a rudely farmed piece of country—a most uninteresting and eventless trip it would have been but for one incident.
"Early in the morning, which was intensely hot, our driver had pointed out a dark cloud hanging over the horizon a few miles away. I paid little attention to it, until I saw that it was drawing nearer, and then I asked what the chances were of our getting wet.
"'Wet,' answered the native driver; 'it is something worse than rain, the old plague of the country, the locust.' It was true. We were advancing upon an army whose numbers it was impossible to compute, and whose power of devastation was more complete than that of any human army—insects by the hundred billions filling the air, and forming high toward the heavens a funnel-shaped object, a living cyclone.
"It came rapidly down upon us, and before long the advance guards struck us—ugly brown locusts that flew against the animals, striking our faces, crawling, flying everywhere. The animals soon became alarmed by the constantly augmenting numbers; the horses reared and tried to break away, snorting in the greatest terror. If the truth must be told, their owners were hardly less alarmed than they.
"The air was filled with locusts. They covered the ground so that, look which way you would, it was a crawling, swaying mass of life. Every moment matters grew worse, and it became darker. They were so numerous that they hid the sun, and made the day seem as dark as though a fog bank were blowing in.
"The frightened animals were put at full speed, and we dashed into the thickest of them. I tied a cloth over my head in order to shut them out, but it was useless. They covered everything, penetrated anything, and literally swarmed over us. For a few moments the maddened horses dashed along; then they began to lag, and finally they came to a dead stop, and one went over the traces and fell in a living sea of locusts. The insects covered the ground so thickly that the wheels were clogged, and the horses floundered in them as they would in snow.
"It was a disagreeable sensation to sit in the living rain and be pelted with them; but there was no help for it, and for two hours we endured it. Then the insects passed on, and we managed to bring the horses through.
"As we emerged from the cloud and passed over the country they had devastated, it was like riding over a burnt district. Every blade of grass and every green thing had disappeared, and starvation stared people in the face. They had literally swept over the country like flame, and removed every vestige of vegetation."
In the same region, a swarm of locusts, even more extensive than that described, appeared in 1888. Not only famine but pestilece threatened the entire country by the enormous accumulations of dead and living insects. To fight this dreadful horde, over sixty thousand laborers and two thousand soldiers went out, armed with sticks, clubs, and firebrands, but their efforts seemed to have no effect.
It is difficult for those who have never seen such a destroying force to realize its awful meaning. The advance of such a legion may well be compared to that of an invading army. True, the people are not killed, but their means of living are taken away, and they often starve to death.
The most devastating wars in the history of the world have been between human beings and these seemingly insignificant insects. When they appear in a country the note of warning is sounded, and every man, woman, and child enlists to evict the invaders. The locusts pour out from the earth in millions, or sweep down in vast bodies. Fires are started with the hope that the smoke will destroy them or turn their course; but, as a rule, when they once gain a foothold they press on, and by sheer force of numbers carry everything before them. They enter houses, crawl through windows and doors, cover the floors, and accumulate wherever they are killed or crushed, thus producing disease and pestilence.
There are on record several interesting accounts of these insect wars. The earliest is found in the Bible, where the grasshopper is described as one of the plagues of Egypt. In the Book of Exodus, chapter x., we find the following:
"And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; . . . for they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt."
From very early times certain portions of Africa have been particularly subject to these invasions, and, according to Pliny, the inhabitants of Cyrenaica were frequently raided by them; so that laws were made for the protection of the land, and every person was obliged to kill a grasshopper, in whatever stage it might be found. In Lemnos, many years ago, a law obliged every person to pay a tax of grasshoppers, or bring to the magistrate certain measures of the insects. In this way it was hoped in time to wipe them out, but it is needless to say that it had little or no effect upon them.
The amount of damage accomplished in these raids by the common enemy cannot be realized; only a rough estimate can be given, and the appearance of the horde creates far more consternation than a declaration of war between nations.
In the year 591, a swarm of locusts appeared in Italy. Men gave the word of alarm, which was carried from village to village, and every effort was made to destroy them; but they stripped the country over which they passed, and finally, after a high wind had blown them into the ocean, they were washed up on the shore in such numbers that a plague was produced that carried off the inhabitants by thousands.
To estimate the number of locusts in one of these clouds seems impossible. In 1748 armies of them entered Europe, invading parts of Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, Hungary, Poland, and Germany, and scientific men endeavored to calculate their numbers. It was found that the right and left wings of one army rested upon villages forty miles apart. The length was so great that, though flying at a rapid rate, the cloud was three hours passing a given spot.
An army of insects seen in Africa by Barrow in 1797 was estimated by him to cover an area of two thousand square miles! Like a swarm previously referred to, they were blown into the ocean, and for fifty miles along the shore he found them washed up in banks from three to four feet high.
The Rocky Mountain locust has caused immense losses, and is probably the most dreaded in this country. The eggs are deposited in the ground. They hatch in March and April, and begin their life as wingless, voracious larvae, often traveling long distances in this stage. In the last of June they assume the perfect form with wings, and it is then that they do incalculable damage. They are very active at night, and travel at a rate of from ten to fifteen miles a day.
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