W. p. "Delane Stebbino 121 



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part of the island. Some of these latter did a great deal of damage 

 among the vines and olives but they were not much inclined to settle 

 and start egg laying. Each village did as much as it could to keep them 

 on the move, the inhabitants going out into the fields with sticks and 

 old tins or anything with which they could make a noise. On the un- 

 cultivated hill tops piles of brushwood were collected and at the alarm of 

 a swarm of locusts appearing these were fired so that the drifting smoke 

 should terrify the insects. At night the scattered fires now rising now 

 falling in intensity had a rather alarming look from the heights of Troodos 

 before their necessity was realised. The threatened ravaging of the 

 Omodhos district, which is one of the richest wine producing districts 

 of the island, aroused everyone to exert themselves so that little damage 

 was done at this period. A swarm of locusts appeared over the village 

 of Omodhos on the afternoon of its great fair and was heralded by the 

 ringing of its church bells, while departing strangers with their strings 

 of mules and donkeys were hurried on their way by the beating of tin 

 cans. Most of the swarms of this plague, which can have formed only 

 a minute proportion of the hosts that left the shores of Syria, were 

 loosely composed and as they did not darken the sun their fluttering 

 flight was pretty to watch. This flight is very deceptive and made the 

 writer think that he could catch scores of the first swarm he was among. 

 But it was very rare for one to alight and without a butterfly-net it 

 proved impossible to make a capture, although a boy joined in the hunt. 

 On another occasion at midday a swarm was resting among scrub with 

 much bare ground but seemed equally wide awake. Although the insects 

 did not keep in the air no quickness availed to track one to earth 

 as their flight was too long to keep marking the spot at which some 

 particular one dropped. 



After the birds among natural destructive agencies there is no doubt 

 that the various species of lizards do an immense amount of good in 

 keeping down insect life. Their numbers prove this. If a mere man 

 could not catch a locust the large ugly brown rock and tree climbing 

 lizard known as Agama stellio could ; and an attempt to rob one of his 

 prey on the slopes of Troodos above the vineyards was frustrated by 

 his disappearance into a hole. At this level Troodos although tree 

 covered, evidently had no attractions for locusts as the writer only saw 

 a couple of other specimens at any height. It was a complete bar 

 between the cultivated valleys to N. and S. 



The vine growing district south of Troodos, which consists of a much 

 denuded belt of decayed volcanic rocks succeeded by a wide limestone 



