The Texas Grasshoppers Turned Cannibals

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The Gonzales (Texas) Inquirer says : "The grasshoppers, having about completed the work of destruction to vegetation, have, cannibal-like, fallen to work devouring each other ; at least, they seem to be dying off very fast, and wherever there is a dead one there are half-a-dozen live ones around it, eating it up." It is thus that there is a limit placed by natural laws to restrain the ravages of these insects, otherwise they would increase in such numbers as to threaten the destruction of the human species, by destroying all the vegetation necessary for man's sustenance.

Scientific American Magazine Vol 13 Issue 24This article was published with the title “The Texas Grasshoppers Turned Cannibals” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 13 No. 24 (), p. 187
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican02201858-187e

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