No. 4] Locusts. 109 



had to be abandoned. The search for eggs also was not found suocessf ul 

 as a means of destroying the pest. A plan was tried of marching lines 

 of beaters, armed with bundles of twigs through the fields beating the 

 ground so as to crush the young locusts. This was to some extent suc- 

 cessful in short grass, but could not be made use of with growing crops. 

 The plan of dragging country blankets rapidly over a field where locusts 

 were to be found, and squeezing up the cloth every few yards to kill 

 the insects which had been caught, was found useful in bushy tracts, but 

 required, for its successful working, a good deal of activity and intel- 

 ligence. The most successful method consisted in dragging over the 

 fields a capacious bag, five or six feet deep by eight or ten feet long and 

 much like a huge bolster case, but open at the side, instead of at the 

 end. This was held by two men, one at each end, and was ran along 

 over the grass or young crops, to catch the locusts, which tumbled in, 

 and, being unable to escape, could, from time to time, be killed by twisting 

 up the bag. This was found to be a simple and easy means of destroy^ 

 ing the locusts, and the people took to it readily all over the locust- 

 affected area. Little or no injury was done to the crops by the men 

 working it, and millions of insects were killed. 



With regard to the numbers destroyed during the locust invasion, 

 the Collector of Nasik reported the destruction, in his collectorate alone 

 of some forty-five tons of locusts, which he estimated must have repre- 

 sented about a thousand millions of individual locusts. Similarly in the 

 Satara collectorate one hundred and eighty tons were reported to have 

 been destroyed by the local officials. The numbers destroyed in these 

 two collectorates were no doubt greater than in most of the collectorates 

 which suffered from the locusts, but the figures give some idea of the 

 extent of the invasion. 



With regard to the identity of the locust of 1882-83 Dr. Macdonald 



in his report, reprinted in the Indian Forester, Vol. 



jrhe identity of the lo- x> advanced the sup p OS ition that the insect was 



Acridium peregrinum, and this name was adopted 

 in most of the official reports which subsequently appeared. There 

 seems, however, to be conclusive proof that the insect belonged to some 

 other species. In the reports, both of Lieutenant Colonel Swinhoe and 



three feet high, in front of an advancing swarm of young wingless locusts, pits being dug 

 at intervals, close to the screens and at right angles to them, on the side towards the ad- 

 vancing swarm, the object being that the young locusts, on arriving at the screens, may 

 turn to the right and left, and thus pour into the pits, where they can be destroyed. The 

 chief advantage of the screen system is, that it enables a series of pits, dug at intervals, to 

 take the place of the continuous trench that would otherwise be necessary to catch the whole 

 of a swarm. The material hitherto chiefly used for the screens has been cloth, bound along 

 the top with a strip of slippery oilcloth about four inches wide to prevent the locusts elimbing 

 over, but smooth mat screens are likely to be cheaper for use in many parts of India. 

 The pits are usually furnished with overhanging zinc edges to prevent the locusts escaping. 



