LOCUSTS OF BENGAL, MADRAS, ASSAM, &€ BOMBAY. 133 
injury, between the years 1874 and 1877, estimated at 200 million dollars. It 
breeds permanently only ina broad and comparatively barren region in the 
north-west of America, whence the invading winged swarms swoop down upon 
the fertile plains of the south and south-east, not appearing in the Mississipi 
valley until the latter part of July or the beginning of August, when wheat, 
barley and oats have generally reached perfection and been harvested. This, 
it is reported, renders it possible to prevent serious injury by relying chiefly on 
these crops when there is reason to fear incursions. On arrival the locusts 
devour everything green to be found, until they deposit their eggs and die 
in the autumn. From these eggs are produced in the spring, vast hordes of 
young which devour everything green they can find, travelling along the 
ground (not having yet acquired wings) from the fields they have exhausted 
to fresh ground. They may be destroyed in vast numbers by systematic 
rolling, collecting by hand, drawing bags over the field, &c., and their advance 
may be prevented by digging ditches in front of them with a streak of tar at the 
bottom, and also by driving them into heaps of straw to be then burnt, the trees 
being protected by bands formed of poisonous or impenetrable substances, 
When the larve are full-fed and acquire wings, they rise up, by this time fol- 
lowed by hosts of insect parasites (Tachine, Ichneumonide, &c.), and, weakened 
by disease, make their way more or less directly towards their permanent 
breeding-grounds ; they perish by millions on the road, so that but few ever 
reach their home in the high and barren north-west, where alone they are 
able to propagate permanently. They leave (it is reported) a great part of the 
country sufiiciently early to allow of corn of rapid growth being produced 
after their departure, and succeeding swarms avoid the parasite-stricken dis- 
tricts which their immediate predecessors have deserted. Hogs, poultry, and 
all kinds of birds, besides various insects, destroy vast numbers of the locusts; 
and as they can only exist permanently in the comparatively barren north- 
west, it is supposed that when this breeding-ground is irrigated and settled 
the locusts will gradually be exterminated. 
Caloptenus italicus occurs on the Kuropean side of the Mediterranean (Italy, 
Austria, &c.) ; it is also found in North Africa and South Russia (Verz, Zool. 
Bot, Ges. Wien., xviii, p. 930 ; Bull. Ent. Ital., xiii, p. 210). It has been report- 
ed as destructive. 
Stauronotus cruciatus has proved injurious in Italy and Sicily (Bull, Ent. 
Ital., xiii, p. 210). It also periodically invades Cyprus and the Troad (Proc. 
Ent. Soc, Lond., 1881, pp. xiv & xxxviii ; also, Brown :—Report on the Locust 
Campaign of 1885-86 in Cyprus). 
In Cyprus the locust is indigenous to theisland. The young hatch ont 
about the middle of March, and take about six weeks to become adult, when 
they acquire wings, take flight, and soon afterwards copulate and oviposit, 
The eggs are laid in uncultivated rocky ground, ploughed land and light soil 
being avoided. Each egg-pod contains about 33 eggs. Some damage is done 
