270 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



grain-eaters, and are, therefore, indiscriminately shot down, 

 we must not wonder that insects of many kinds, including 

 injurious ones, will increase ; and this I see you also mention. 

 On one of these locust visitations — it might have been in 

 1858, mentioned in your last article — I observed immense 

 swarms of a kind of bird, a little larger than an English 

 sparrow, hovering like a thick cloud over several of the 

 larger tracts of land where the unwelcome visitors were 

 flying, and soon found that they fed principally, if not 

 solely, on them. The name of ihe bird I did not learn, as it 

 disappeared with the locusts, as if sent for their especial 

 capture. The other partial remedy I mentioned at the time, 

 and which had been previously told me by a friend, was the 

 same as your correspondent 'Observer' speaks of, viz., the 

 leaves of the castor-oil plant, just for the purpose, as 

 he says, of protecting flowers, &c., in a garden. In past 

 years I have frequently tried this, and always found it 

 succeed best when the leaves were fresh. The locusts in 

 their flight descended on them, as on everything else of 

 a vegetable nature, and died after the first few bites : more 

 locusts took their places, so that each leaf was nearly covered 

 with dead bodies, others lying all around who had only 

 strength left to crawl a few paces off", so quickly did the 

 poisonous effects of the sap of the leaf act. 



" ' Our references to locusts last week were confined to the 

 Northern Districts, and they occasioned very little notice in 

 Adelaide; but since that the townspeople have had ocular 

 proof of the kind of plague that the Northern farmers 

 suffered from. On Friday evening, December 15th, an 

 enormous swarm of locusts passed over the city, darkening 

 the air, and creating no little sensation. It appears that for 

 some time they had been steadily marching — if the kind 

 of locomotion affected by them can be called "a march" 

 — upon the metropolis. We have no positive proof of the 

 fact, but it is more than probable tliat the army mentioned 

 before as having reached Kapunda, and as being en route for 

 Gawler, is identical with that to which we are now referring. 

 It was seen approaching the city by Mr. Badge, who, 

 on Friday, whilst about three-quarters of a mile beyond 

 Athelstone, encountered a swarm of locusts so thick that his 

 horse refused to face it at a faster pace than a walk. The 

 rider had to cover his head to save himself from injury by 



