134. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII. 
by the winged swarms, which, however, generally disappear by about the 
middle of June, the eggs remaining in the ground until about the following 
March, when they hatch. 
Serious loss is often occasioned by the locusts, and of late years a regular 
warfare has been waged against them by the Government of the island. The 
following was found to be the most satisfactory method of destroying them : 
Cloth-screens, about three feet high and bound:at the top witha strip of oilcloth 
to prevent the locusts from climbing over, were erected in front of the advance 
of the young locusts, pits being dug at intervals close to the screens and at right 
angles to them on the side towards the locust swarm, the edges of the pit 
being protected by frames made of cloth and wood, with zinc edge arranged to 
prevent the young locust from escaping from the pits. A swarm, on arriving 
at the screen, was found invariably to turn right and left along it, apparently 
endeavouring to go round it ; the young locusts thus poured in vast numbers 
into the pits dug to receive them, and, being unable to escape, were destroyed 
wholesale. In the case of the locust invasion of 1886, Brown reports (wide 
official report presented to both Houses of Parliament by Her Majesty, 
February, 1887) :— 
“ There were very few places where the locusts were sufficiently dense to justify the 
use of screens and traps, and they were in most cases destroyed by covering the 
ground they occupied by a thin layer of dry brushwood or rubbish and setting fire to 
it. By this means large areas were burned. Where the locusts were so sparsely 
scattered, or the scarcity of brushwood rendered this method inapplicable, they were 
destroyed by beating (an improved beater or locust-flap of leather, weighted with 
lead, having been introduced by me this season). The weak point of these methods, 
as compared with the screen and trap system, is that, although the locust may be 
greatly reduced, it is practically impossible absolutely to exterminate them, whereas 
our experience of 1883 and 1884 abundantly proved that when carefully worked it is 
possible, by the continuous screen system then first introduced, to completely clear 
large tracts of land where the locust swarms were most dense.” 
Stauronotus moroccanus.—This insect, which is found in most of the countries 
bordering on the Mediterranean, and which has also been reported from Bad- 
ghis in Afghanistan, has of late (1887—89) proved very destructive to grain 
crops in Eastern Algeria, where its increase has been favoured by drought. 
Unlike Acridium peregrinum , which periodically invades Algeria from the south, 
it breeds permanently on the sparsely vegetated hill ranges in Algeria itself 
(Batna, M’lila, M’sila, Bordj, Rendir, &c.,)and thence descends in countless 
numbers into the cultivated plains towards the shores of the Mediterranean. 
The invading flights appear in the summer, and the females proceed, on arrival, 
to deposit their eggs in holes about an inch deep, which they bore with their 
ovipositors in the ground. About thirty or forty eggs are deposited in a mass 
of mucilage in each hole. These eggs remain in the ground throughout the 
autumn and winter, and hatch in the following spring (eggs laid in the end of 
Juneand beginning of July, 1888, hatched in April, 1889). After hatching out, 
