THE LOCUST OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIA. 259 



invaded by vast flights of locusts, which arc reported to have conic in the south from 

 the teeburs, or sandhills, of "Western Rajputana, and to the north from the direction 

 of the Suliman Range. They did a great amount of injury, especially in Siorhi, 

 Ajmere, and Marwar, where the distress caused by the drought and consequent 

 famine of 1868-69 was much increased through the destruction of a great portion 

 of the remaining crops by the locusts. In the Dera Ismail Khan district flights 

 from the Suliman Range appeared in the end of April and in May ; eggs and young 

 locusts were also found, about this date, near the hills in the sandy tracts of the 

 same district. Flights were also reported in the early part of May from Amritsar. 

 But throughout Central Rajputana and in the more southern districts of the 

 Punjab (Mulfcan, Sirsa, Ludiana, Dera Ghazi Khan, Hissar) the main flights ap- 

 peared about the commencement of the south-west monsoon in June and July. 

 The eggs laid by the invading flights were distributed throughout the whole of 

 Central Rajputana, and also in the Hissar district of the Punjab, and the young 

 locusts became full-grown and acquired wings in August and September, and were 

 said to have been the progenitors of the second batch of eggs which were laid about 

 the end of September in the Hissar district. The crops were damaged, in the 

 first instance, by the young locusts before they acquired wings, and afterwards by 

 the winged swarms which seem to have flown about the whole of North-West 

 India throughout the autumn and winter of 1869 and settled at intervals to 

 devour the crops. Records have been found of measures, such as trenching, &c, 

 which were adopted with considerable success in the Hissar district in the Punjab 

 and also on the Deesa Commissariat Farm in Rajputana, for the destruction of the 

 young insects in their wingless stage ; while from Amritsar and Lahore there are 

 accounts of how the villagers collected with tom-toms and drove the winged 

 locusts off their crops, so that but little damage was done. Throughout Raj- 

 putana, however, the measures taken for the destruction of the pest seems to have 

 been very much less successful, partly perhaps because they were carried on 

 unsystematically, but chiefly no doubt because of the vastness of the numbers of 

 locusts by which the country was invaded and the comparative sparseness of the 

 population. Thus a vast amount of injury was done in Marwar, Ajmere, Kishen- 

 garli, Tonk, Sirohi, and the northern part of Meywar, the crops being damaged 

 both by the young locusts and also by the winged flights. 



The following extract from a report, dated 9th December, 1870, by Colonel 

 J. C. Brooke, Officiating Agent to the Governor-General in Rajputana, shows the 

 extent of the calamity : — 



" A breadth of land equal to half the usual quantity was sown. The grain every- 

 where sprouted splendidly, and all reckoned that the famine bad passed, when 

 another scourge visited the country in the shape of locusts. They entered Marwar 

 from Jeysulmere at the end of May and laid their eggs in every direction. These 

 hatched as the rains set in, and by the end of August the young locusts had spread 

 over the whole famine tract, laying fresh eggs wherever there was sand. The 

 broods from these eggs appeared early in September and, moving in dense masses 



