114 Indian Museum Notes. [Vol. IL 



vasion of 1886 Brown reports (vide official report presented to both 

 Houses of Parliament by Her Majesty, February 1887) : — 



"There were very few places where the locusts were sufficiently dense to justify 

 the use of screens and traps, and they were in most cases destroyed by covering the 

 ground they occupied by a thin layer of dry brushwood or rubbish and setting fire to 

 it. By this means large areas were burned. Where the locusts were so sparsely 

 scattered, or the scarcity of brushwood rendered this method inapplicable, they were 

 destroyed by beating (an improved beater or locust flap of leather, weighted with lead, 

 having been introduced by me this season). The weak point of these methods, as 

 compared with the screen and trap system, is that, although the locusts may be greatly 

 reduced, it is practically impossible absolutely to exterminate them, whereas "our ex- 

 perience of 1883 and 1884 abundantly proved that when carelully worked it is possi- 

 ble, by the continuous screen system then first introduced, to completely clear large 

 tracts of laud where the locust swarms were most dense." 



Stauronotus maroccanns. — This insect, which is found in most of the 

 countries bordering on the Mediterranean, and which has also been 

 reported from Badghis in Afghanistan, has oflate (1887 — 89) proved very 

 destructive to grain crops in Eastern Algeria, where its increase has been 

 favoured by drought. Unlike Acridium peregrinum, which periodically 

 invades Algeria from the south, it breeds permanently on the sparsely- 

 vegetated hill ranges in Algeria itself (Batna, M'lila, M'sila, Bordj, 

 Bendir, &c), and thence descends in countless numbers into the culti- 

 vated plains towards the shores of the Mediterranean. The invading 

 flights appear in the summer, and the females proceed, on arrival, to 

 deposit their eggs in holes about an inch deep, which they bore with 

 their ovipositors in the ground About thirty or forty eggs are deposited 

 in a mass of mucilage in each hole. These eggs remain in the ground 

 throughout the autumn and winter, and hatch in the following spring 

 (eggs laid in the end of June and beginning of July 1888 hatched in 

 April 1889). After hatching out, the young locusts band themselves 

 together and march through the country devouring the crops. The loss 

 occasioned in 1888 was estimated in the Consular report at about a 

 million sterling. In 1888 measures were taken upon a large scale by 

 the French Government for the destruction of the eggs, about 600,000 

 francs being said to have been expended in buying eggs, at the rate of 

 1 fr. 50 c. for two decalitres, from the Arabs. These measures, however, 

 proved insufficient, and were considered unsatisfactory, M. Kunckel 

 d'Herculais indeed showing that whereas a man can rarely collect as 

 much as 2*60 litres of egg cases, containing some 72,000 eggs, in a day, 

 he can destroy about a million young locusts by collecting them after 

 they have emerged from the eggs. In 1889, therefore, the Government 

 introduced the Cyprus screen system upon a considerable scab for the 

 destruction of the young locusts. About 300 kilometres of screen were 

 procured and 100,000 people were employed in destroying the young 



