ORTHOPTEEA. 



329 



seat of the carriage near Wiener Neustadt. The species does not occur 

 naturally so far north, and must certainly have entered the train when 

 we were passing through Croatia or Slovenia. It is a flightless insect, 

 and how it could have made its way into the compartment is a mystery, 

 and, in spite of its frailty, it must have survived the night in a crowded 

 carriage. Its occurrence in the Trieste-Vienna express affords a clue 

 to the explanation of rare Orthoptera far out of the bounds of their 

 natural distribution, J/, hrevlpcnne is far from being a common form, 

 but occurs in some numbers in the Eiviera, Italy, the South Tirol, and 

 Krauss has taken it at Trieste, whence the train came, at Fiume, and 

 also at Laibach, a town through which we had passed during the early 

 part of the night. — Ibid. 



The Locust pest in the Dobeudja. — -In the Balletin ch la 

 Societe des Sciences de B nearest, An. ix., No. 4, 1900, M. Montandon 

 discusses* the locust pest in the delta of the Danube. Although the 

 eminent rhynchotist has not before published observations upon 

 Orthoptera, he has diligently collected insects of this order, and 

 amassed a basis for an account of the Orthoptera of Eoumania. 

 Acting upon the instructions of the Ministere des Domaines, he studied 

 the locusts in the Dobrudja, and the work in question is his report. The 

 species which came under his notice w&s PacJujtijlus viigratoinus, L., but 

 it was not so much an invasion as an unusual abundance of the insect 

 in its natural home. The young larva hatches from the egg towards 

 the end of April, and reaches maturity between July 15th, and August 

 15th. The best time to attack them is when they are quite young 

 and feeble. They are then found in quantities together and may be 

 isolated into companies by little ditches, and then crushed wholesale. 

 When older, they are more independent ; they separate more from 

 each other and are strong and active enough to climb or leap over 

 obstacles. The favourite breeding-place in the Dobrudja is a belt of 

 old sand-dunes, rarely more than a few kilometres broad, where the 

 females can easily deposit their ova in the soft ground. M. Montandon 

 combats the theory that migrating swarms return to breed in their 

 original haunts, and favours the opinion that they propagate their 

 kind in any suitable spot. As to means of extermination, the author 

 deprecates the offering of rewards for eggs, by weight, as being waste 

 of labour which might be better employed elsewhere. He strongly 

 advocates the absolute protection of birds which prey upon the locusts. 

 As an example he cites Pastor roseus, which greedily devours these 

 insects, but being shy, has been frightened away from the country by 

 the noise of guns. Instead of being one of the most familiar birds of 

 the district, it is now almost unknown. M. Montandon, therefore, 

 very rightly recommends the prohibition of shooting in infested places. 

 It is known that the ova hatch intermittently from the beginning of May 

 till the middle of June. It is often asserted that they hatch soonest in 

 dry grounds, but the author affirms, from his experience, that while 

 the larvse are very young in the dry upland parts, near the swamps and 

 in marshy grounds they are far more developed. On the occasion of 

 the recent plague, troops of soldiers were despatched to collect and 

 destroy the larvfe,but they arrived too late, when the insects were already 

 strong and active. The author, therefore, further recommends that 



* Les Acridiens du Delta dii Danule, par A. L. Montandon. 



