THE LOCUST PLAGUE? 
By B. P. Uvarov, D. Se. 
Entomologist, Anti-Locust Research Centre, British Museum (Natural History) 
THE OLDEST ENTOMOLOGICAL PROBLEM 
The locust problem has confronted man since the earliest beginnings 
of agriculture. Biblical references to locust plagues are well known, 
and Joel’s description of a locust invasion has never been surpassed for 
its dramatic picturesqueness combined with amazing accuracy of detail. 
The earliest known record of locusts is a picture of a locust on the wall 
of an Egyptian tomb of the Twelfth Dynasty, about 2400 B. C. Ref- 
erences to locusts abound in ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, and 
Chinese texts, and Roman writers such as Titus, Livy, and Pliny have 
left us many data, some fantastic, but some of definite value. <A criti- 
cal examination of this information is still awaited, and it may shed 
new light on certain sides of the problem. 
The more recent literature on the locust problem is enormous, and 
the number of books and papers on the subject was estimated 15 years 
ago at about 2,000; since then this figure has been almost doubled, 
owing to intensive new research. The more important contributions 
are published in about a dozen languages, and the task of coping with 
this flood is not an easy one. 
WORLD-WIDE PROBLEM 
It is often thought that locust plagues are restricted to a few coun- 
tries and that the world at large need not be concerned about them. 
This view is largely due to the fact that central and northwestern 
Europe is now practically safe from locusts, though its southern coun- 
tries, e. g., Portugal, Spain, Italy, the Balkan Peninsula, the Ukraine 
and the Caucasus, know their depredations only too well. 
The zone where agriculture has to reckon with locusts and their 
lesser relatives, grasshoppers, becomes even wider in temperate Asia, 
1Lecture delivered before the Dominions and Colonies Section, Royal Society of Arts, 
London, December 15, 1942, and published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 
vol. 91, No. 4631, 1943. Revised and brought up to date by the author, and here reprinted 
by permission of the Royal Society of Arts. The object of the present paper is to give a brief 
account of the locust problem and to show how recent advances in its study have made it 
possible to envisage its lasting solution. 
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