ORTHOPTERA. 329 
seat of the carriage near Wiener Neustadt. The species does not occur 
naturally so far north, and must certainly have entered the train when 
we were passing through Croatia or Slovenia. It is a flightless insect, 
and how it could have made its way into the compartment is a mystery, 
and, in spite of its frailty, it must have survived the night ina crowded 
carriage. Its occurrence in the Trieste-Vienna express affords a clue 
to the explanation of rare Orthoptera far out of the bounds of their 
natural distribution. IM. brevipenne is far from being a common form, 
but occurs in some numbers in the Riviera, Italy, the South Tirol, and 
Krauss has taken it at Trieste, whence the train came, at Fiume, and 
also at Laibach, a town through which we had passed during the early 
part of the night.—Izip. 
THe Locust pest in tHE Dosrupsa.—In the Bulletin de la 
Société des Sciences de Bucarest, An. ix., No. 4, 1900, M. Montandon 
discusses* the locust pest in the delta of the Danube. Although the 
eminent rhynchotist has not before published observations upon 
Orthoptera, he has diligently collected insects of this order, and 
amassed a basis for an account of the Orthoptera of Roumania. 
Acting upon the instructions of the Ministére des Domaines, he studied 
the locusts in the Dobrudja, and the work in question is his report. The 
species which came under his notice was Pachytylus migratorius, L., but 
it was not so much an invasion as an unusual abundance of the insect 
in its natural home. The young larva hatches from the egg towards 
the end of April, and reaches maturity between July 15th, and August 
15th. The best time to attack them is when they are quite young 
and feeble. ‘They are then found in quantities together and may be 
isolated into companies by little ditches, and then crushed wholesale. 
When older, they are more independent; they separate more from 
each other and are strong and active enough to climb or leap over 
obstacles. The favourite breeding-place in the Dobrudja is a belt of 
old sand-dunes, rarely more than a few kilométres broad, where the 
females can easily deposit their ova in the soft ground. M. Montandon 
combats the theory that migrating swarms return to breed in their 
original haunts, and favours the opinion that they propagate their 
kind in any suitable spot. As to means of extermination, the author 
deprecates the offering of rewards for eges, by weight, as being waste 
of labour which might be better employed elsewhere. He strongly 
advocates the absolute protection of birds which prey upon the locusts. 
As an example he cites Pastor roseus, which greedily devours these 
insects, but being shy, has been frightened away from the country by 
the noise of guns. Instead of being one of the most familiar birds of 
the district, it is now almost unknown. M. Montandon, therefore, 
very rightly recommends the prohibition of shooting in infested places. 
It is known that the ova hatch intermittently from the beginning of May 
till the middle of June. It is often asserted that they hatch soonest in 
dry grounds, but the author affirms, from his experience, that while 
the larvee are very young in the dry upland parts, near the swamps and 
in marshy grounds they are far more developed. On the occasion of 
the recent plague, troops of soldiers were despatched to collect and 
destroy the larve, but they arrived too late, when the insects were already 
strong and active. The author, therefore, further recommends that 
* Les Acridiens du Delta du Danube, par A, L. Montandon, 
