.88 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [March, 



THE entire library of Mr. C. H. T. Townsend, was destroyed by fire in 

 Las Cruces, New Mex., while he was East in January. He will be grateful 

 to correspondents and others who will send him sets of their papers to 

 enable him to replace those destroyed. He has removed to Brownsville, 

 Texas, as Temporary Field Agent of the Division of Entomology U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture. 



IN iSn, at Smyrna, at right angles to a flight of Locusts, a man rode 

 forty miles before he got rid of the moving column. This immense flight 

 continued for three days and nights, apparently without intermission. It 

 was computed that the lowest number of Locusts in this swarm must have 

 exceeded 168,608,563,000,000 ! Captain Beaufort determined that the 

 Locusts of this flight, which he himself saw, if framed into a heap, would 

 have exceeded in magnitude more than a thousand and thirty times the 

 largest pyramid of Egypt; or, if put on the ground close together, in a 

 band of a mile and an eighth in width, would have encircled the globe ! 

 This immense swarm caused such a famine in the district of Marwar, 

 that the natives flecUftft subsistence in a living torrent into Guzerat and 

 Bombay; and out of every hundred of these Marwarees, Captain Carnac 

 estimates, ninety-nine died that year ! Near the town of Baroda, these 

 poor people perished at the rate of five hundred a day; and at Ahme- 

 dabad, a large city of 200,000 inhabitants, 100,000 died from this awful 

 visitation ! "'Penny Magazine" 1843, p. 231. 



THE Arabs believe the Locusts have a government among themselves 

 similar to that of the bees and ants; and when " Sultan Jeraad," king of 

 the Locusts, rises, the whole mass follow him, and not a solitary straggler 

 is left behind to witness the devastation. Mr. Jackson, himself, evidently 

 believed this from the manner he has narrated it (Morocco, p. 103). An 

 Arab once asserted to this gentleman that he himself had seen the great 

 "Sultan Jeraad," and described his lordship as being larger and more 

 beautifully colored than the ordinary Locust (ibid. p. 106). Capt. Riley 

 also mentions that each flight of Locusts is said to have a king which 

 directs its movements with great regularity (Narrative, p. 235). The 

 Chinese believe the same, and affirm that this leader is the largest indi- 

 vidual of the whole swarm. Benjamin Bullifant, in his observations on 

 the Natural History of New England, says: "The Locusts have a kind 

 of regimental discipline, and, as it were, commanders, which show greater 

 and more splendid wings than the common ones, and arise first when 

 pursued by fowls, or the feet of a traveler, as I have often seriously re- 

 marked." The truth, however, is found in the Bible: They have no 

 king (Prov. xxx, 27). Cowan 's Curious Facts. 



Identification of Insects (Imagos) for Subscribers. 



Specimens will be named under the following conditions : ist, The number of species 

 to be limited to twenty-five for each sending; 2d, The sender to pay all expenses of trans- 

 portation and the insects to become the property of the American Entomological Society ; 

 3d, Each specimen must have a number attached so that the identification may be an- 

 nounced accordingly. Exotic species named only by special arrangement with the Editor, 

 who should be consulted before specimens are sent. Send a 2 cent stamp with all insects 

 for return of names. Before sending insects for identification, read page 41, Vol. Ill, 

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