Swarms alighted upon various patches of vegetation ; one of couch-grass, we 

 heard of, over which the locusts settled two deep, and were killed wholesale 

 with whips. They attacked less zealously a small plantation of lucerne, the 

 flavour of which seemed hardly to their taste. Near it a number of fowls 

 collected, and seemed to be well employed in picking up specimens of 

 Natural History. Mr. George H. Glover writes the following from Kers- 

 brook on the 19th December: — • The locusts were first seen in this neigh- 

 bourhood on Friday last ; they still increased in what we would now call 

 small numbers, for at about eleven o'clock yesterday morning (Monday, the 

 18th) they began to come in clouds, or rather in one continual cloud. The 

 work of destruction was then commenced in earnest. In a very short time 

 acres and acres of potatoes were cleared of their leaves ; the ground, grass, 

 potatoes, and fruit-trees from the bottom to the tops are literally covered 

 with them : they are so thick that we have enough to do to go through the 

 gardens where there is anything green. The first things they eat most are 

 potato-tops, and reeds and grass. Of course I shall be able to tell more 

 about it in a few days. Their direction here is from north-west to south- 

 east.' Some anxiety has been shown as to the extent of the ravages in 

 Dr. Schomburgk's domain of the marauding armies of locusts ; but it is 

 (^ratifying to learn that, while verbenas and some dainty flowers have fared 

 badly, the gardens as a whole have not suffered much. The bulk of the 

 leafage of shrubs and ornamental trees would probably have been cleared 

 but for the pasture-land which adjoins the pleasure-ground, and the plots of 

 couch and other grasses that have been so tastefully laid out. On these 

 spots the hordes settled in myriads, and in many places nothing remains 

 but the bare brown earth and a few tussocks where there was formerly a fine 

 brioht green sward, soft as velvet and refreshing to the eye. The pests 

 swept over the grass and ate it far closer than sheep would have done. The 

 Director is yet thankful that this satisfied them, and the locusts in conse- 

 quence spared what was of vastly more value. Well watering the plots will 

 restore the artificial grasses, and ere long a fresh crop will spring. 



" Other colonies as well as our own have been suff"ering from a similar 

 visitation. From Echuca we hear that incalculable mischief has been done 

 to the standing crops in the district ; but the local paper adds : — ' It may 

 be useful to agriculturists to learn that the larkspur is exceedingly fatal to 

 these hisects. They may be seen lying dead in heaps in gardens where 

 this plant is cultivated.' 



"Mr. M. Symonds Clark, in a letter to the 'Register,' writes: — 'Of 

 birds which destroy locusts we have a great many species. A very old 

 colonist has informed me that quail were formerly very abundant upon the 

 Adelaide Plains, and that on examining the crops of some of these birds 

 which he had shot he found them to be full of grasshoppers. Probably 

 hawks of all kinds, crows, native magpies, shrikes, laughing jackasses, 



