The locust plague and its suppression / by Æneas Munro.

  • Munro, Aeneas.
Date:
[1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The locust plague and its suppression / by Æneas Munro. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/388 (page 17)
    *7 52. Caution necessary.—It is needless to say that all these assertions, valuable as every idea, observation, and suggestion may be, have at the same time to be scrutinised and verified, inasmuch as we are -dealing with lands and peoples that are wholly unknown, or countries sparsely peopled or civilised, and where data and statistics are not, to say the least, very accurately recorded or accessible. Some arrogant, presumptuous, self-assertive person or persons affirm, for example, that the locusts which have been migrating to the Republics adjacent to the River Plate, in South America, for the last eight years, have their per- manent home in the Gran Chaco of that same region, where they are -said to dwell or hibernate actually in “ haycocks —a preposterous idea ! Although numbers of men who are careful and even skilled observers have travelled (and in the cold of winter, too) in all directions over the Chaco, yet they have never seen any trace to lead any one of them to such a conclusion (§ 50). Surely some one of these would have come across a trace of things as large as “haycocks”! Moreover, we know it is not a habit of the locusts to congregate in this precise way. They, no more than the members of the human family, cannot divest themselves of their habit and character, which is an indestructible quantity. It cannot be too strongly emphasised at the outset that there is nothing connected with the life-history or habits of the locust, however trivial the same may appear, but what is, or may become, of some value in the consider- ation and solution of the important points connected with the locust plague. No doubt their migrations, like the forces of nature, are governed by certain laws, but what these are we do not at present know. Certain it is that this migratory quality or character adds largely to their destructive powers. 53. No certainty regarding home of origin.—The truth is that the inquiry respecting the abode of the locusts is involved in ■obscurity and difficulty, and the inquiry can only be solved with the advance of knowledge and the progress of civilisation in these dark and at present unknown regions. Telegraph wires, railroads, etc., are important factors in pushing on civilisation and getting more accurate information. Who here knows anything of the so-called “ centre ” of Africa? In the Argentine how many or how few know the “centre” of the Chaco? How shall the “centre” be defined? And to be dogmatic and affirmative about what we do not know is unwise and foolish, although it may be easy and tempting. How often one finds that it is the ignorant who are so ready to be assertive, and the one who knows most to be careful and reticent regarding the making of sweeping statements and random generalisations.1 1 “ In its winter quarters,” says Mr. Bruner (p. 25 of Report), “ this insect gathers in immense quantities. Here it crawls among the underbrush and grasses, and piles up to such an extent that ‘ heaps ’ of locusts can be found a foot or more high. These 2