“Mind you’re ready, children, to-morrow morning before the sun gets too hot. We’re going Locust-hunting.”
This announcement throws the household into great excitement at bed-time. What do my little helpers see in their dreams? Blue wings, red wings, suddenly flung out like fans; long saw-toothed legs, pale blue or pink, which kick out when we hold their owners in our fingers; great shanks that act like springs, and make the insect leap forward as though shot from a catapult.
If there be one peaceful and safe form of hunting, one in which both old age and childhood can share, it is Locust-hunting. What delicious mornings we owe to it! How delightful, when the mulberries are ripe, to pick them from the bushes! What excursions we have had, on the slopes covered with thin, tough grass, burnt yellow by the sun! I have vivid memories of such mornings, and my children will have them too. [[228]]
Little Paul has nimble legs, a ready hand, and a piercing eye. He inspects the clumps of everlastings, and peers closely into the bushes. Suddenly a big Grey Locust flies out like a little bird. The hunter first makes off at full speed, then stops and gazes in wonder at this mock Swallow flying far away. He will have better luck another time. We shall not go home without a few of those magnificent prizes.
Marie Pauline, who is younger than her brother, watches patiently for the Italian Locust, with his pink wings and carmine hind-legs; but she really prefers another, the most ornamented of them all. Her favourite wears a St. Andrew’s cross on the small of his back, which is marked by four white, slanting stripes. He wears, too, patches of green, the colour of verdigris on bronze. With her hand raised in the air, ready to swoop down, she approaches very softly, stooping low. Whoosh! That’s done it! The treasure is quickly thrust head-first into a paper funnel, and plunges with one bound to the bottom of it.
One by one our boxes are filled. Before the heat becomes too great to bear we are in possession of a number of specimens. Imprisoned in my cages, perhaps they will teach us something. In any case the Locusts have given pleasure to three people at a small cost.
Locusts have a bad reputation, I know. The textbooks describe them as noxious. I take the liberty of [[229]]doubting whether they deserve this reproach, except, of course, in the case of the terrible ravagers who are the scourge of Africa and the East. Their ill repute has been fastened on all Locusts, though they are, I consider, more useful than harmful. As far as I know, our peasants have never complained of them. What damage do they do?
They nibble the tops of the tough grasses which the Sheep refuses to touch; they prefer the thin, poor grass to the fat pastures; they browse on barren land that can support none but them; they live on food that no stomach but theirs could use.
Besides, by the time they frequent the fields the green wheat—the only thing that might tempt them—has long ago yielded its grain and disappeared. If they happen to get into the kitchen-gardens and take a few bites, it is not a crime. A man can console himself for a piece bitten out of a leaf or two of salad.
To measure the importance of things by one’s own turnip-patch is a horrible method. The short-sighted man would upset the order of the universe rather than sacrifice a dozen plums. If he thinks of the insect at all, it is only to kill it.