306 THE INSECT WOBLD. 



Mortes, on the Mediterranean coast, 1,518 wheat sacks were filled 

 with dead locusts, amounting in weight to 68,861 kilogrammes, and 

 at Aries 165 sacks, or 6,600 kilogrammes. The rewards given 

 amounted to 5,542 francs ; but, notwithstanding all this, the follow- 

 ing year the locusts caused still greater damage. 



Locusts are always to be found in Algeria, in the provinces of 

 Oran, Bona, Algiers, and Bougia, but they never commit those 

 terrible ravages which change cultivated countries into deserts. 

 There are in Algeria years of locusts as there are with us years of 

 cockroaches, of blight, of caterpillars, &c. These plagues are 

 fortunately rare. The most terrible took place in 1845 and in 1866. 

 In the former year a formidable invasion of locusts took place. It 

 lasted five months, from March to July, each day bringing new 

 bands of these devastating insects ; and M. Henry Berthoud, 

 then in Algeria, saw a column of them, whose passage began 

 before daylight, and had scarcely ended at four o'clock in the 

 afternoon. Doctor Guyon, doctor to the army, and corre- 

 spondent of the Institute, addressed to this learned body an 

 account of a few peculiarities of this invasion, of which he was 

 a witness. He speaks of a band which passed on the 16th of 

 March over the plain of Sebdon, going in the direction of the 

 desert of Angard. Their passage lasted three hours. The locusts, 

 having found nothing to devour in the desert, came back again, 

 and next day made a descent upon the plain of Sebdon, which 

 is 30 kilometres long, by 12 to 15 kilometres broad. In four 

 hours all the crops were devoured, and all vegetation destroyed. 

 " The locusts/' says the Doctor, " left behind them an infectious 

 odour of putrid herbs, produced by their excretions." 



At Algiers, in the Faubourg Bab-Azoum, they penetrated in 

 masses into the barley stores, and there was the greatest difficulty 

 in driving them away, great barricades being . raised before the 

 store-rooms to stop the invasion. In 1845 they penetrated into 

 the pits in which the natives preserve their wheat. According 

 to the report of the Commandant de la place of Philippeville, 

 M. Levaillant, a column of locusts alighted in the country round 

 about that town on the 18th of March, 1845, which extended 

 from 30 to 40 centimetres, and the locusts were found heaped upon 

 the ground to the height of three decimetres. 



