1918] Coccobacilliis Acridiorum D'llerelle 21 



Vein and Bouin in 1915 reported that d'Herelle's method 

 gave encouraging results in combating Schistocerca peregrina 

 in Morocco. 



During September, 1915, Dr. L. O. Howard, U. S. Bureau 

 of Entomology, received what was termed two sub-cultures of 

 d'Herelle's Coccobacillus from Dr. Cicilio Lopez Ponce of 

 Honduras. In a letter written by Dr. Ponce the latter says: 

 "Under instructions from the Secretary of the Honduran Com- 

 mission of Agriculture, who lives in Tegucigalpa, I have the 

 honor of sending you by this post, in a registered package, two 

 tubes of a culture of the Coccobacillus acridiorum d'Herrlle. 

 Some time ago I came to this city from the neighboring Republic 

 of Salvador with the object of taking charge of a laboratory 

 devoted to the cultivation and propagation of this parasite, 

 and I am pleased to inform you that the results could not have 

 been more satisfactory." 



From their experiments in Canada (1916) Du Porte and 

 Vanderleck concluded that: "The results of our work indicate 

 that d'Herelle's biological method for the control of locusts 

 cannot take the place of the methods now in use under the 

 conditions which obtain in eastern Canada. Should the disease 

 become established, its spread would be extremely slow, owing 

 to the non-migratory and non-cannibalistic habits of the 

 native species. The ideal conditions for the effective use of 

 this method are those such as d'Herelle and others found in 

 South America and North Africa where the locusts were in 

 quickly moving swarms and were markedly cannibalistic in 

 their habits. Indeed, most of these writers have emphasized 

 the fact that " acridiophagy " is the chief factor in the spread of 

 the disease. Another hindrance to the effective use of this 

 method lies in the presence of several native strains of a cocco- 

 bacillus identical with or closely related to d'Herelle's. These 

 organisms are undoubtedly responsible for the immunity of the 

 locusts to a mild infection of Coccobacillus acridiorum^ 



A perusal of the literature of the subject shows that five 

 out of nine articles report encouraging field results by the use 

 of d'Herelle's Coccobacillus acridiorum. These five reports all 

 deal with the genus Schistocerca represented by the species 

 americaua, parajiensis, and peregrina. The unsuccessful reports 

 deal with a variety of grasshopper genera such as Stauronotiis, 

 Zonocerus, Oedalens, Locusta and Melanoplus. The bacterium 

 may be very effective when used against certain species of the 



