Abstract
MR. S. B. O'LEARY of this city has favoured me with extracts from a letter written by a relation of his residing on a plantation near Antigua-Guatemala, and containing information about the locust-plague, by which lately the crops of Indian corn and a great many coffee-plantations in that country have been destroyed. The insect is called Chapulin (Gryllus miles, Drury?), and appeared first in the department of Chiquimula, in the eastern part of Guatemala, close to Honduras. Thence it spread over all the warmer parts of the Republic, avoiding the higher and cooler regions. The loss must be very considerable; one gentleman, Don Gregorio Revuelto, in the department of Suchitepeque, lost in one night 70,000 trees, without there being left one single leaf. In April a swarm, supposed to be four leagues broad and about 300 metres long, approached the estate belonging to the writer of the letter, but fortunately could be partly driven away with noise and smoke.
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ERNST, A. Locusts and Coffee Trees. Nature 22, 408 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/022408b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/022408b0
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