[ 703 ] 



the end of the rains giving birth to new swarms to trouble 

 the cultivator once more. 



1.222. The easiest way of dealing with the insect, is to 

 dig up and destroy the eggs, if information can be procured 

 where they have alighted and laid eggs. In the district of 

 Rawalpindi 500 maunds of eggs were thus dug out one year 

 and destroyed. It is not enough to bury them or to plough 

 them in, but actually to break and smash them. It is not 

 so very difficult to destroy large quantities of the larvae either, 

 when they march along hopping. They never turn to the 

 right or the left but blindly march along. If trenches can 

 be dug along their path they tumble into them and then they 

 can be destroyed in shoals in these trenches. The trenches 

 need not be more than a foot deep, and the insects can be 

 encouraged by children marching behind them with brushes 

 of straw, to march along at a quicker pace to their destruc- 

 tion. Another plan is to place lines of burning straw &c. 

 along their path and they will be found to march into the 

 fire also quite blindly and get burnt. While they are on 

 their hopping march they can be also beaten and trodden to 

 death in large numbers. But when they have once got wings 

 the inhabitants of a whole village should come out as soon as 

 they notice a flight, and prevent the insects alighting by fright- 

 ening them with sticks and by yelling and crying and beating 

 of drums and tin cans. At night, if fires are lighted the 

 locusts are found to fly into the fire like moths, and get 

 burnt. The larvae of Deccan locusts do not march into 

 trenches and it is therefore more difficult to deal with 

 them. 



1.223. The following remedy was recommended in an 

 article which appeared in the Englishman newspaper : 

 "Take one pound of arsenic and one pound of caustic soda. 

 Take four gallons of water, bring to boiling point and then 

 add the caustic soda ; when dissolved, add the arsenic, stir 

 well and boil for a few minutes, care being taken not to in- 



