THE LOCUST OF NORTH WESTERN INDIA. 24:; 



In the second note, prominence was given to the fact that the evidence points 



to the region of sand hills in Western Eajputana 

 lVrmanenfc breeding 

 grounds. as tne permanent home of this locust. Subsequent 



reports, while confirming this point, seem to indicate 

 that though most of the nights issued from this breeding ground, others invaded 

 India from breeding grounds which probably lie along the Suliman Range, or 

 even perhaps, in some cases, beyond India's Western Frontier, in the sandy 

 deserts of Baluchistan, Southern Afghanistan, and Persia, though the reports 

 received from these regions are so fragmentry that no very definite conclusions 

 can be formed from them. 



The nature of the country, which forms the chief permanent breeding ground 

 of Acridium peregrinum in India, is well described by Surgeon -Major Moore, who 

 wrote as follows in his report on the locust invasion of 1869 : — 



" The locusts breed in the most sandy and desert districts of Raj pu tana, especially 

 in the teeburs or sand hills of South- Western Manour and Mullanni. The locality 

 mentioned presents a succession of sand hills from 50 to 200 feet high, and some 

 miles long. As a rule, they run in a south-easterly direction. This remarkable 

 tract extends over thousands of square miles, commencing near the Runn of 

 Cutch, and forming a broad belt of country towards Bhawalpur and Bikauir. 

 During the monsoon season it is fairly green from the growth of a species of 

 Mimosa on which the camels feed. At other periods it presents a bright blinding 

 whitened appearance." 



With regard to the habits of the insect, there still remains a good deal to 



ascertain. In Algiers, where Acridium peregrinum is 

 periodically very destructive to agricultural crops, 

 flights arrive from the Sahara about May, and lay their eggs soon afterwards ; and 

 the young locusts which are produced from these eggs, become adult by about 

 July, and by August have usually taken wing, eggs not being again deposited 

 until the following year ; but over the wider area, which extends through North- 

 West India into Baluchistan, Persia, and Arabia, it appears that breeding is by no 

 means confined to any one period of the year. Information on the subject is 

 incomplete, but so far as it goes, it seems to show that eggs can be laid at any 

 period in the warmer portion of the year, provided the conditions of soil and 

 moisture are suitable ; the close of the winter rains in the North-West Punjab, 

 and the commencement of the south-west monsoon rains in Rajputana, being two 

 of the chief periods during which egg-laying goes on in India. 



If we divide that portion of North-West India, in which breeding usually takes 

 place, into two regions, viz. (1) Rajputana, including the south-east corner of the 

 Punjab and extending into the North-Western Provinces, an area which generally 

 receives its locusts from the permanent breeding ground in the sand hills of 

 Western Rajputana ; and (2) the North-West Punjab, including most of the region 

 bordering upon Afghanistan and Baluchistan, where the locusts seem generally to 

 come from breeding grounds along the Suliman Range or beyond the frontier; we 



