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LOCUSTS IN THE VILAYET OF ALEPPO, SYRIA. 



The following consular dispatch from Mr. E. Bissinger, United States 

 consul at Beirut, transmitted by the Department of State to the Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture, possesses considerable interest as indicating still 

 further the prevalence of locusts all over the locust areas of the world 

 during 1890 and 1891 : 



The province of Aleppo has not only been infested with the cholera, hut invaded 

 by locusts as well, as will be observed from the following brief report, based upon 

 information from United States Consular Agent F. Poche, in Aleppo, which, in the 

 abstract, is as follows : 



The spring rains failed us this year in the vilayet of Aleppo, and in the mutessar. 

 rifiate of " Deir-el-Zor," and as the locusts did not find suflicieut nourishment they 

 invaded wheat, barley, cotton and sesame fields, sparing neither ; nor did meadows, 

 trees, or vegetable gardens escape these voracious creatures. In one word, there is 

 desolation everywhere. Cotton and sesame fields are almost entirely destroyed, 

 while wheat will barely yield one-half, and barley scarcely a third of the average 

 yearly crops. 



The evil could, in all probability, have been prevented, to a certain extent at least, 

 had the measures usually adopted, been employed in time. These consist of — 



I. The plowing of the ground about the middle of July in those localities where 

 the locusts are known to have deposited their eggs. 



II. The buying up, beginning of this period to the time of their hatching, of all 

 the eggs deposited. 



II. Collecting and burying the locusts; this to be done from the time of hatching 

 until able to fly. 



By honestly a.nd intelligently employing the funds designated for this purpose, the 

 gravity of the sit nation might have been greatly diminished, even if the evil could 

 not have been entirely abated; as it is, the £2,000, voted by the State, and the 

 £3,000, collected from the people, have been lost to the Treasury and to the jjeople, 

 as no efforts were made until after the locusts were able to fly and had ravaged the 

 country. 



ANOTHER GrOVERNMENT ENTOMOLOGIST APPOINTED. 



Information has reached us of the appointment of our valued corre- 

 spondent, Mr. A. Sidney Ollifi", late assistant in the museum at Sydney, 

 to the newly instituted office of entomologist in the Department of Ag- 

 riculture of New South Wales. His duties will consist largely in the 

 investigation of insects affecting fruits and crops, and in publishing, 

 for the benefit of the agriculturist, the results of his studies. 



A CURIOUS BIT OF ENTOMOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION. 



The time-honored joke of the verdict of the English railway guard 

 concerning the classification of the '"edge-'og as a hinsect" is paral- 

 leled by an item from BeWs Messenger, (London, July 27, 1891), in 

 which it is stated that a collection of butterflies, consigned to a high 

 legal official in Duisburg, Germany, was detained at the custom-house. 

 Upon inquiry the fact was elicited that the customs officials had come 

 to the conclusion that, as butterflies have wings, they must be classed 

 as poultry, and so be subjected to the same duty. It was only after 



