8072 Tue ZooLtocist—May, 1872. 
The citizens flocked out from their houses to witness the unusual sight, and 
examined with interest the solitary locusts that remained behind. They 
appeared to be of the ordinary type, but of large size and wonderfully strong 
in the wing. Another huge swarm of locusts visited the city on Sunday, 
December 17, alighting in various parts of the Park Lands and in private 
gardens, where in a very short time they left marks of their voracity upon 
vines, fruit trees, and other specimens of vegetation. A day or two after- 
wards Mr. Townsend, of Rundle Street, showed us a basket of apricots, or 
rather stones, to give an idea of the devastation the locusts had caused 
among some of the gardens at Glynde and in the Torrens Valley. He 
states that on many trees of American plums there is not a vestige of fruit 
left, the invading hordes having thoroughly bared the orchards. We have 
also seen a bunch of potato-tops and a sample of maize, taken from splendid 
growths in Mr. O. Philp’s garden, Chain of Ponds. At ten or eleven o'clock 
o'clock on Monday there was not a solitary specimen of the pest about, but 
soon after countless myriads arrived, and descended upon a splendid patch 
of potatoes, varying their diet with other green things. It is rather 
remarkable, but it is vouched for, that the locusts do not touch thistles. 
Standing upright in the midst of farmsteads and along the river-bank, 
where clouds of the creatures have gorged themselves, may be seen splendid 
samples of the much-abused thistle flourishing while dreariness reigns 
around. All these are very much like the doings of the locusts of 1844; 
for we find in the old file already referred to the following paragraph :— 
“During the last few days North Adelaide has been visited by swarms of 
destructive locusts. In the gardens at the back of Kermode Street they 
have made great havoc, clearing the vines of their leaves, and eating up the 
melons and everything else that is green. On Monday the whole neigh- 
bourhood was alive with them, their constant fluttering in the air not being 
unlike the flakes of a heavy snowstorm. Last year they did much damage 
in this particular locality, but this year their numbers are greatly increased.”’ 
—‘ Register, November 13, 1844. 
“On Friday, December 17, about sundown, there was an immense flight 
of locusts at Glenelg from the seaward. They were in countless myriads, 
and flying about nine or ten feet high. They had every appearance of 
having crossed the Gulf; at least, they were in full force at the end of the 
jetty, and appeared to be making their way, ‘against the wind, towards the 
hills. One of the Glenelg fishermen states that he has on previous occasions 
seen locusts crossing the Gulf, and that he has, while out at sea, found his 
boat covered with them. <A few days afterwards (December 20) the locusts 
arrived in force at Glenelg, travelling rapidly southward. The right wing 
of the army rested on the coast line, but did not go further westward than 
the green herbage of the sandhills. On the bare sands only a few stragglers 
were to be seen, and scarcely any within three or four yards of the water. 
