DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS OF VICTORIA. 



CHAPTER XLTir. 



THE COMMON VICTORIAN LOCUST. 



{Pachytelus australis^ Br.) 



Order : Orthojitera. Family : AcrididcB. 



This terrible scourge, which when fairly on the wing, 

 carries desolation to all living herbage, is not by any 

 means confined to Victoria, where there are several other 

 so-called locusts, the above-named insect, as it is strictly 

 migratory, being the most destructive of all, and in a 

 report by Mr. R. Helms, then connected with the New 

 South Wales Agricultural Department, who went afield 

 specially for the purpose of studying the hal)its of these 

 insects, he makes the following remarks, which will apply 

 to the conditions obtaining in Victoria : — 



"It seems that the locust is most destructive before 

 maturity or the winged stage is reached. When the 

 time arrives food becomes the secondary and pairing the 

 primary object of the two sexes, the numbers of which 

 are about equally divided. Immediately after pairing, 

 the females bore holes into the hard ground, with great 

 dexterity and rapidity, to a depth of 1^ to 2 inches, by 

 about 5 inch in diameter. This is done by means of a 

 double horny process (see Plate XXXVII. , Fig. VII.) 

 attached to the last segment of the body, assisted by the 

 secretion of a white frothv substance, and by the muscular 



