186 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



and also from the Kistna district in the Madras Presidency. Their presence was 

 also noticed in Sind, but no mention was made of them in reports from Rajputana. 

 In February they were again reported from different parts of the Punjab (Lahore, 

 Rawalpindi, Dehra Ismail Khan) and also from Sind. 



The above sketch of the spreading of the locusts seems to point to the sandy 

 tracts of Western Rajputana as the centre from which they radiated. This being 

 the tract from which it was supposed that the locusts came in 1869, when Rajpu- 

 tana was invaded by what appears likely to have been the same species of insect, 

 and the fact that A cridium yeregrinum periodically invades Algeria, from the direc- 

 tion of the Sahara desert, increases the probability of the supposition. 



Wingless larvae have been received from Marwar, where they were found by 

 Surgeon-Major Hendley in the beginning of August, and also from Jodhpore anil 

 Karachi, the dates of their capture not having been recorded ; a specimen, 

 however, said to have just emerged from the wingless state was received from 

 Karachi, where it had been found by Mr. Gumming on 2nd November. These 

 data, incomplete as they are, point to the invading flights of locusts having reached, 

 on the one side Sind and on the other Jodhpore and Marwar, before depositing 

 their eggs in June and July. Soon after this latter date the parent locusts no 

 doubt died off, according to the known habits of their species, leaving the young 

 locusts to develop ; we accordingly find a lull until about September, in which 

 month the earliest broods appear to have become full grown, acquired wings, and 

 commenced to spread in flights. These flights seem to have gradually travelled 

 northwards into the Punjab, and eastwards and southwards, across the Aravalli 

 mountains into Eastern Rajputana, Central India, the North- West Provinces, 

 Oiulh, Khandesh, and Baroda, a stray flight penetrating even as far as the Kistna 

 district in the Madras Presidency. They have flown backwards and forwards 

 over this vast area in swarms which have alighted at intervals to devour the crops 

 which they generally completely destroy where they alight, though their numbers 

 have been too small to create any widespread calamity. 



With regard to the future history of the locusts, the known habits of these interest- 

 ing creatures enables us to predict with considerable certainty at least the general 

 lines on which they will proceed. The flights of winged insects, now present in 

 many parts of India, will probably continue during the remainder of the cold 

 weather flying about the country and alighting at intervals to devour crops. They 

 are, however, except in such sandy tracts as those which extend from the Araval 

 mountains on the east to Sind on the west, under unnatural conditions, and may 

 therefore, be expected to perish in great numbers, from disease and the attack of 

 their innumerable foes, before their time comes in the spring to deposit their 

 eggs and die of old age, after completing the natural cycle of their existence. In 

 their desert home they would probably not commence laying their eggs before 

 May or June next, when their instinct told them that the time for vegetable 

 growth was approaching; but under the damper conditions of the districts thev 



