279 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII. 
evidently difficult to keep locusts healthy in cages, and the oviposits being poor is not 
wondered at. It would appear, however, to be proved that the common locusts of Northern 
India can copulate and lay eggs six or seven months after birth, and that in all probability 
the eggs lately laid in the Punjab were those of insects hatched last August. The locusts 
which copulated round Jodhpore last July were of a bright yellow ; the survivors of their 
offspring, which were pink when put into the cages in September, were in February a dirty 
purple colour, and to the best of my recollection that was the colour of the locusts the eggs 
of which many years ago I helped to destroy during the month of March in the Punjab.” 
The habitual disappearance of locusts throughout the greater portion of the 
winter months in North-Western India is explained by the fact that they 
require little or no food during this period, and probably hybernate in a dor- 
mant condition. On 28th February, 1891, Mr. J. Cleghorn wrote that locusts 
had been hybernating without food in a cage kept in his house in Peshin, 
Baluchistan, since the 15th September, 1890, though he had found that similar 
insects in the summer required to be fed constantly to keep them alive. 
There is little to add to what has already been recorded upon the subject 
of the methods adopted in fighting the locusts, but it 
may be useful to notice what was actually done during 
the year 1891 in carrying on the campaign in 
different districts. The reports which have been received upon this subject 
Measures adopted against 
the locusts. 
are very fragmentary, but the measures they describe are probably typical of 
what went on over the greater portion of the areas invaded. (*) 
Tn the cold weather of 1890-91 numbers of the winged locusts which swarmed 
into the Rawalpindi District were killed in the early mornings, when they 
were numb with cold, by the people; and as the spring of 1891 advanced, a 
regular campaign was organized thfoughout the Punjab by the district officials 
for the destruction of the young locusts, 
In Dera Ismail Khan, a naib-tahsildar and kanungo, with six or seven chapra- 
sis under them, were put in charge of each tappa, and lambardars and zilladars 
were warned to render every assistance in their power. Five hundred rupees 
were spent in rewards. The wells and water-courses were kept clean to avert 
epidemic disease, but the people were very apathetic, and little impression 
was made on the vast swarms which crowded into the district, 
In Rawalpindi the district was divided into circles with an officer in charge 
of each, whose main duty it was to look after the destruction of the locusts and 
their eggs. All tahsil officials were employed in the work of destruction, and a 
thousand rupees were spent from district funds. Millions of eggs and young 
locusts were destroyed, but the impression made was small, as the insects laid 
their eggs largely in the extensive and sparsely peopled Kala Chitta Range, 
where it was most difficult to get at them, 
(*) The following notices are mostly taken from a report by the Director of Land Records 
and Agriculture, Punjab, supplemented by the information collected from crop and other 
reports sent to the Museum. 
