LOCUSTS OF BENGAL, MADRAS, ASSAM, & BOMBAY. 131 
circumstance which is not likely to have occurred if this had been the species 
which was at that time swarming over the Presidency. Again at a meeting 
of the Entomological Society of London, held on the 4th of April, 1883, 
Mr. W. F. Kirby, of the British Museum, exhibited specimens of a locust which 
he identified as Acridiwm succinctum, and which he had received from Mr. T. 
Davidson, who stated that it was the species which had lately been destructive 
in the Deccan and other parts of India. In the absence, therefore, of actual 
specimens, which do not seem to have been preserved, it may be concluded 
as most probable that while numerous species of Acrididw may have been 
present in great numbers in the Bombay Presidency in 1882-83, the insect 
chiefly responsible for the injury to the crops was Acridiwm succinctum, which, 
therefore, would be the one spoken of by most of the observers who, from 
their reporis, seem to have noticed but one kind of insect. 
LOCUSTS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD. 
Many species of Orthoptera occasionally increase vastly in numbers, so as to 
cause serious injury to agricultural crops; and there 
are, in different parts of the world, certain species, 
which are known distinctively as Locusts, and which possess this habit to a 
remarkable degree, often migrating in swarms which devour the crops over 
wide areas of country. Migratory locusts usually breed permanently in tracts 
where the vegetation is sparse. In years when they increase excessively, they 
descend in flights from their permanent breeding-grounds, upon cultivated 
districts, where they destroy the crops, lay their eggs, and maintain themselves 
fora limited period, but are unable to establish themselves permanently, 
usually disappearing in the year following the invasion, to be succeeded, after 
an interval of years, by fresh swarms from the permanent breeding-ground. 
Generally speaking, the life circle of a locust extends through one year, in 
which period it passes through its various stages of egg, young wingless larva, 
active pupa, and winged adult which lays the eggs that areto produce the next 
generation, the only recorded exception being Acridium peregrinum, which is 
believed to pass through two generations in the year in India. 
The eggs are laid in little agglutinated masses in holes which the female 
bores with her ovipositor in the ground. In temperate climates the eggs are 
usually laid by the end of the summer, and the parent locust dies before the 
winter commences, the eggs remaining in the ground during the winter months, 
and hatching out in the following spring. In sub-tropical countries, where 
there is but little winter, the winged locusts live on through the cold season, 
and do not die off until the following spring, when they deposit their eggs, 
In thiscase the eggs hatch after lying in the ground for about a month. In both 
temperate and sub-tropical regions alike, the young wingless locusts on emerg- 
ing from the eggs in the spring or early summer feed voraciously and grow 
rapidly for one or two months, during which period they mouli at intervals 
finally developing wings and becoming adult. The adult locusts fly about in 
General. 
