264 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



outbreak centres near Lake Chad and in the French Sudan 

 (Golding 1934 and 1935; Lean 1936). 



For the French possessions there is a centrahzing committee 

 in Algeria working in close co-operation with the London Institute. 

 The French organized special missioijs to investigate the French 

 African territories with regard to the migratory and desert locusts. 

 M. Zolotarevsky is in charge and is assisted by another entomolo- 

 gist and a meteorologist, while another government entomologist 

 is under his instructions. 



The degree of co-operation in locust research between Nigeria 

 and these French territories is considerable, and while Mr. Lean 

 was permitted to investigate certain areas in the French Sudan, a 

 French mission with M. Zolotarevsky at the head has visited the 

 Chad area together with Mr. Golding., 



In the Congo an entomologist, M. Bredu, is at work on the red 

 and migratory locusts, and he has explored several important areas 

 in the Eastern province, as well as in the Katanga. In Mozam- 

 bique laboratory work on the red locust is progressing at Lourengo 

 Marques, and the Italian Government have throughout shown 

 great interest in the investigations. 



The essential preliminary to control measures is a system for 

 forecasting the movements of swarms, but before this can be estab- 

 lished the effect of weather on movements must be known. As 

 suggested at the 1934 locust conference in London, many data 

 could be collected by recording locust swarms simultaneously with 

 climatic conditions at all first and second class meteorological 

 stations, and this is now being carried out in some territories, while 

 arrangements have been made with the Meteorological Office for 

 preparation of monthly weather maps for the whole continent of 

 Africa, which can be then directly compared with the maps of 

 locust movements prepared at the Imperial Institute of Entomo- 

 logy. 



Parasites of locusts, which could be used for purposes of bio- 

 logical control, have been sought by many workers. The most 

 hopeful so far discovered is a fungus {Enipusa gryllae) . This is known 

 to take heavy toll of swarms in several parts of Africa, but a means 

 of increasing its depredations artificially has not yet been discovered, 

 and the prospects are not very great. 



