MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 523 



been extremely plentiful about tbis part of tbe Punjab during the current 

 season, commencing about the beginning of August. 



It seems a pity that the villager is so apathetic about the destruction of the 

 eggs of the locust. I am told on good authority that in response to the Govern- 

 ment order the following is the usual form of procedure by the Lambardar of 

 the pest-infected village : — Your petitioner reports that to-day a flight has 

 alighted near the fieid of one " Kissen Singh ;" the next day that they have 

 laid eggs (these generally within an area of about 10 square yards; each female 

 laying 108 eggs) ; the next " that he (the Lambardar) has destroyed the 

 eggs !" Again a day elapses and he reports that " the flight has departed " ! 

 This may be true or not, generally the destroying part is not so ! as a 

 native dislikes destroying life, and he says to himself : " Oh ! they will 

 not bother me," "they will hatch out and go somewhere else"! "where 

 I care not " ! 



October 4th. — Since writing the above I have had occasion to visit a village 

 about 12 miles in a northerly direction from Sirsa and find that the cloud of 

 locusts reached this place at 12-30 p.m.. so that my calculation of the rate of 

 the speed of 8 miles an hour was slightly over-estimated. After reaching 

 this village at 12-30 they halted and did not leave again till 8 a.m. the next 

 morning, in the meantime doing untold damage to the standing crops. I was 

 shown " bajra " that was practically ruined, and they seem to have eaten 

 even the bark off some trees. My informant added that the flight was 

 1G miles long by 7 broad and gave me the names of villages up to which 

 they extended, as reported by the dak runners and villagers coming into 

 the railway station near ! I think the breadth somewhat exaggerated, 

 but the length of 16 miles would correspond with the rate of 8 miles 

 per hour which from my calculation at the time I estimated them to be 

 travelling at when passing over the town of Sirsa. I was also told of a 

 "Fakir" who kept the locusts from alighting at his village by the following 

 method : — 



After catching two insects and performing ceremonies and prayers over 

 their bodies placed under a small chattie, he gave both into the hands 

 of a villager whom he instructed to run as hard as he could in a wide circle round 

 the village, unlike "Lot's wife," not once looking behind him ! This, I was 

 assured, had preserved the crops, as not an insect had alighted in the enchanted 

 area, and it was added the man had worked this miracle many times before and 

 was well known in all the different villages about. I then asked why, being 

 such a holy man, he did not try to clear the whole district, to which the reply 

 was given that he was a very holy man, and did not do this " moziza" for money, 

 but that some of the villages had not — in a word — come down with the needful 

 handsomely enough. Probably these villages are now very sorry for them- 

 selves. R. H. HEATH. 



Sirsa, Punjab, October 1903. 



