46 — 



insects were crossing the river, the latter was at 

 least two hundred feet wide. At the time of this 

 flight which cQnl^iûued passing fully for fifteen minu- 

 tes, the wind was from the northeast, that is, against 

 the general movement of the insects but light, cer- 

 tainly not exceeding eight miles the hour. I should 

 Judge that; the rate of flight with this flock was about 

 ten to fifteen miles an hour or even more. Later on, 

 during the day, I crossed the river and the locusts 

 were occasionally met with in large numbers, occu- 

 pying small patches of grass covered strips of land 

 surrounding cane fields; they were so dense in these 

 patches as literally to cover the ground, flying up in 

 a continuous cloud as one advanced through them, 

 fljdng away from the walker and ahghting again 

 some feet ahead and facing toward him in prepara- 

 tion for another retreat should it become necessary. 

 Here, they were cutting of the grass down close to 

 the soil; the grass looked as though it had been cut 

 off in bunches but of course it was eaten blade by 

 blade. Only here and there had cane been fed upon; 

 so far, in this immediate vicinity, the sugar cane 

 has not been injured nor eaten to any extent. But 

 the next day, at Mundoo, a portion of a cane field, 

 noticed because all of the plants appeared to be 

 withered, had been badly injured, most of the plants 

 having one or more of their leaves stripped to the 

 midrib. Direct evidence of this having been done 

 by the locusts was not present but the injury appea- 

 red to be characteristic of them and they were present 

 in numbers in the neighbourhood; besides this, their 

 oonsipicuous excrement was present and later I saw 

 considerable injury of the same kind in cane fields 

 about which there was no doubt concerning the 

 agent. Thus, at Babinda on January 27, the locusts 

 were present in numbers, still adult, in places feeding 

 exteiisively on the foliage of sugar cane, in such 

 places their excrement conspicuous on the ground 

 at the base of the plants along a row. 



It was not until February 10 that young were 

 noticed; the adults had thus lived about a month 

 in the vicinity of Nelson, at least, before laying eggs. 

 The young were encountered while walking along a 

 tramway leading from the Mulgrave Central Mill, 

 about half a mile north of Nelson. I suddenly heard 

 what I thought was rain falling but soon perceived 

 that the noise was caused by the hopping of thousands 

 of these young insects which were gathered in dense 

 masses along the track between the rails and upon 

 the footpath on each side. Looking north along the 

 track just before me, the young locusts could be seen 

 travelhng by very short leajjs toward me, a definite 

 movement of the whole hinder portion of the mass 

 toward the extreme front end, the individuals com- 

 posing the latter having stopped to feed upon the 

 grass. The whole mass was about two hundred and 

 fifty yards long by about three yards wide, its -width 

 Umited by the outside boundaries of the footpaths 

 on each side of the tramway. The density of the 

 mass was considerably less behind than in front 

 where the individuals were concentrating. All of the 

 individuals were of about the same stage of develop- 

 ment which was perhaps the second larval stadium; 



one considerably older individual was observed, I 

 should say about one stage more advanced. The 

 insects were feeding entirely upon grass and had 

 already denuded for a considerable distance behind 

 them, aU of a narrow strip of ground immediately 

 borderiiig the outer side of each footpath. At this 

 same time, an occasional adult was encountered; 

 thus I noticed when looking into the distance across 

 cane fields that every now and then one would be 

 seen flying across them and reminding one of some 

 diminutive bird. 



Again on February 13, across the Mulgrave Kiver, 

 along the railway to Babinda, another smaller mass 

 of the young was encountered, hkewise confined to 

 the roadbed. Soon afterward, many living but old 

 adults were met with and in some places many of 

 these were lying dead upon the ground between the 

 ties of the railway. These dead adults were found to 

 be females which had died while ovipositing; theii 

 abdomens were found buried within the soil (inclu- 

 ding all the segments beyond the third), the buried 

 parts in various stages of decomposition, often infested 

 with carnivorous maggots. The dead insects were 

 bleached and brittle. Beneath the buried abdomens 

 were found the eggmasses, normally deposited. In 

 other instances, the female was found dead or dying, 

 with her abdomen buried into the soil, enormously 

 stretched out and at the surface of the ground twisted 

 into a slender cord as if the female had made some 

 frightful struggle to escape from some approaching 

 danger or had undergone some excessive agony and 

 had struggled to relieve it. The twisted part was 

 often a quarter of an inch long. Many buried ab- 

 domens with the twisted slender part projecting 

 from the ground, but the body of the female missing, 

 were found, so that many probably escaped from 

 whatever the danger was. That the female does 

 not normally die in this manner after oviposition 

 was nearly certain and finally I was lead to the 

 conclusion that these cases were all caused by frantic 

 attempts to escape upon the approach of a train; 

 subsequently, a large number of eggmasses were found 

 in other situations where there were no buried ab- 

 domens nor any dead bodies in the immediate vicinity. 

 In the place where these buried abdomens and dead 

 bodies were found, an examination of the soil disclosed 

 many eggmasses which had been deposited in the 

 usual manner about three inches straight down 

 within the soil; beneath the end of the buried ab- 

 domen (for very few eggmasses were found here 

 without the accompanying buried part of the body), 

 was usually a pinkish frothy mass (dry) about three- 

 eighths of an inch deep, followed by the pod-like 

 mass of eggs. Twenty of the latter taken at random 

 gave a mean of fifty- three eggs per mass, ranging 

 from thirty to eighty-one. The soil containing these 

 was evidently a made one, being part of the bed of 

 the railway; it was a dark, moist loam heavily infil- 

 trated with coarse sand and gravel. There is no 

 doubt but that the adults encountered at this time 

 were the last ones of the original migrating ones 

 first noticed in January. to be continued. 



