275 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII. 
running Sind and Rajputana, and making their way into Kathiawar. Eggs 
were laid towards the latter part of June, 1890, when the rains had well started, 
throughout the whole of Western Rajputana and in the Gurgaon District of 
the Punjab. The young locusts hatched out in countless numbers in July, 
and in the case of Western Rajputana they were reported as doing much 
damage in August. During August and September the flights that were still 
wandering about laid more eggs in parts of the Punjab, About September 
the young locusts that had been born in the beginning of the rains seem to 
have acquired wings, and from September on through the cold weather of 
1890-91 the flights spread in all directions in the most remarkable manner. 
They made their way throughout Sind, the Punjab, and the North-West Pro- 
vinces. ‘Vast flights also moved through Central India into the Central Pro- 
vinces, and thence eastwards into Bengal and Assam, southwards through Berar 
and Hyderabad into the Madras Presidency, and westwards into the Bombay 
Deccan. The flights did a good deal of injury in the restricted areas where 
they settled, but the people were so industrious in driving them off their crops 
and the birds destroyed such large numbers that the damage inflicted was 
small considering the vastness of the invasion. Through December, January, 
and February flights were still reported from all parts of India, but the cold 
and damp, combined with the relentless persecution of the birds and the people, 
had thinned their numbers and reduced them to so miserable a state that they 
were able to do little or no damage. 
In March, 1891, some of the locusts obtained from the flight which passed 
over Calcutta in November, 1890, began to lay eggs in their cages in the Indian 
Museum, About the same time, owing, no doubt, to the increasing warmth 
at the close of the winter rains, the flights in the Punjab became more’ active, 
and egg-laying took place at first in the north-west of the Punjab and Sind 
and afterwards in Baluchistan. In May the young locusts hatched from these 
eggs became extremely numerous in the Punjab. 
The rabi crops were generally too far advanced in growth to be much 
damaged by them, but the extra rabi and the early sown kharif crops—especi- 
ally cotton—suffered severely. The grass in some tracts was completely eaten 
down, and almost every bush and tree was stripped of its leaves. Some idea 
may be formed of the numbers in which the insects appeared from the fact 
that railway trains were said to have often found it difficult to proceed, owing 
to the rails being made slippery by the crushed bodies of the young locusts. 
A regular warfare was waged against the insects, under the leadership of the 
district officials, who organized the people for the purpose of collecting the eggs 
and destroying the young locusts systematically. The military also rendered 
useful service in destroying the swarms that invaded cantonments. 
The method that was most generally adopted was that of driving the young 
locusts into trenches, but the Cyprus screens described in the previous report 
