Locust
by Jeffrey A. Lockwood · first published 2004
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3HN commenters
2018–2026first – last mentioned
67% recommend33% neutral
This book tells the story of America's most extraordinary insect, brilliantly recounted by the scientist who solved the mystery of its extinction. Throughout the nineteenth century, swarms of locusts regularly swept across the continent, turning noon into dusk, devastating farms, and bringing trains to a halt as the crushed bodies of insects greased the rails. In 1876, the U.S. Congress declared the locust "the single greatest impediment to the settlement of the country." In this surprising and original book, Pushcart Prize winner Jeffrey Lockwood sets out to tell the story of an insect, and i
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…participating in the housing market, both personal home ownership and public housing (a major institutional driver of household wealth and success tarting in the early 20th century). By Jeffrey Lockwood: Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier. I had no idea the American frontier was home to devastating largest-in-the-world locust plagues that…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗I highly recommend one of the books cited in this article (Jeffrey A. Lockwood's Locust). He writes about hiking to the glacier to find preserved locusts, the formation of the Entomological Commission which discovered that existing anti-locust practices were ineffective, all sorts of details.
on “What Happened to the Locusts?” ↗Took a few clicks to track down source 10: https://history.nebraska.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/doc_..., which in turn cites this book: https://www.amazon.com/Locust-Devastating-Mysterious-Disappe... On that page you can click “read sample” and then search for “chicken” and the reference on page 3 seems to be the main source of that claim. Where that is quoting,…
on “What Happened to the Locusts?” ↗