88 THE AGRICULTURAL PESTS OF INDIA. 



While still in their larval state they travel in search of 

 nourishment ; but their great wanderings are in flight 

 when they have attained their perfect state. They clear 

 everything off the surface of the ground as completely as 

 if it had been visited by fire, and have sometimes caused 

 disastrous famines. Southey in Thalala says : 



' Onward they come, a dark continuous cloud 

 Of congregated myriads, numberless, 

 The rushing of whose wings was as the sound 

 Of a broad river headlong in its course, 

 Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar 

 Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm, 

 Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks.' 



They have repeatedly invaded Northern India, Sind, 

 Eajputana, the Bombay Dekhan, and the Ceded Districts ; 

 and Major Moore mentions that on one occasion they 

 devastated Maharashtra over a width of 500 miles. 

 The starling, Pastor roseus, is their great destroyer ; but 

 in their larva state, as they travel onwards, trenches are 

 dug in their front, into which they fall and are covered 

 over. Swarms appear in the Ceded Districts in May and 

 June, depositing their eggs, about 70 in each hole, and 

 three months is the period of incubation. 



(Estrides. (Estrus bovis, Z., the ox oestrus ; QE. ovis, 

 Z., the sheep oestrus or Cephalemyea ovis ; QE. equi, Z., 

 the horse oestrus. (E. elephantis takes up its abode 

 in the stomach of the elephant. (E. equi and (E. ovis 

 cause the death of many of their victims. 



QEstrus equi occurs in the south of Europe and Persia. 

 It is a dipterous insect. Its eggs are deposited on the 

 hair of the horse, and licked into the stomach, and when 

 complete the insects pass through the canal. (E. ovis, of 

 Europe and the East Indies, lays its eggs in the nostrils 



