20 " THE LEAVES OF THE TREE Were FOR THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS/' 



Mr. Trethowan We are threatened with a far greater invasion by the 



locusts, an invasion which, if not checked by some means, would eventu- 

 ally devastate the whole colony." The conference unanimously endorsed 

 the chairman's opinion and appointed a large representative committee to 

 confer with the Hon. the minister of agriculture on the subject. 



The three leading agricultural colonies within one month suffered from 

 the said locust visitation to the extent of about one million eight hundred 

 and fifty thousand pounds (i. e. $9,250,000) as follows New South Wales 

 450,000($2,250,000), Victoria 600,000 ($3,000,000) and South Australia 

 800,000 ($4,000,000). Queensland also suffered much from the invasion. 

 Since then the Chaffey Brothers' magnificent Mildura irrigation colony in 

 Victoria was invaded by dense clouds of locusts and for nearly a whole 

 month seemed as if they meant to permanently locate there and in the 

 immediate neighborhood, in order to dispute the Chaffey Brothers' right 

 to have transformed that once arid barren region into a beautiful fertile 

 garden. 



A FALSE RKPORT. 



Ab mt the time the above locust trouble overspread the Mildura district 

 a very silly theoretical suggestion was made by the chief Entomologist in 

 Victoria to the local government at Albury, N. S. W., namely, to erect 

 screens over trenches in order to stop the plague, coupling the suggestion 

 with an absurd estimate of the cost per mile of such, which, when en- 

 quired into was found to be utterly useless if adopted, besides being greatly 

 underestimated as to cost. On the scheme being ridiculed by an expert 

 through the local press, the Victorian secretary for agriculture ac- 

 knowledged his entomologists error and withdrew the proposition. After 

 the dense clouds of locusts had devoted the greater part of a month gorg- 

 ing themselves with the very choice products in the Mildura estate, they 

 passed on towards the adjacent colony of South Australia, leaving a few 

 hundreds scattered about, dead and dying, from possibly, the eating of 

 tomato plants. About sixty of the dead were found to be fly- blown, which 

 fact was carefully figured up by a humorous newspaper man, who wrote a 

 sensational paragraph concerning "a wonderful locust destroying fly," etc., 

 which paragraph has evidently been seriously considered by the State of 

 California Horticultural Department, as the following from the fertile pen 

 of the State Entomologist published in the S. F. Examiner of Eebruary 

 2nd last, denotes: "An effort has been made among others, to introduce 

 a parasite of the grasshopper which is found in Australia, where it has 

 accomplished very excellent work, this is a fly a species of Tachina, which 

 feeds as voraciously on the grasshopper as the latter does on vegetation, 

 and has contributed very much toward keeping down that pest in 

 Australia ( !) The egg is deposited by the female in the body of the grass- 

 hopper and hatches there. The young grub lives upon the adipose tissue 

 of the victim and avoids the vital part until it is matured, sometimes several 

 of these grubs may be found in the grasshopper. When full grown the 

 grubs eat their way out of their victim, usually at the side where the ab- 

 domen and the matathorax meet. As soon as the grub escapes, the grass- 

 hopper, which has been growing weaker as his parasite has grown in side 

 dies. The grub then buries itself in the earth and undergoes its trans- 

 formation, immerging a perfect insect. Examination proved in one case 

 that sixty or seventy per cent, of the grasshoppers in one part of Australia 

 were parasited by the insects." (Not one of those wonderful flies have 

 been as yet captured). 



