

AN INVASION OF BRITISH GUIANA BY LOCUSTS. 343 



else. They have attacked the young plantains in some places and killed them, 

 but no other ground provisions do they eat, yams, tannias, sweet potatoes, etc., 

 getting off free. If the cassava is near its maturity it is not injured by the leaves 

 being eaten, but the corn, of course, is killed at any stage of its growth. 



" The kind of locust visiting the parts is the Gryllus migratorius, the most 

 destructive of locusts ; they cannot fly against the wind. I saw them blown back, 

 but when they wish to seek for fresh pastures they wait for a favourable breeze 

 and travel with it, rising some hundreds of feet before starting. 



" They are a yellow and black and a dark colour. The eggs are laid where they 

 feed by the female thrusting her posterior into the ground and depositing three 

 separate blocks of eggs, each block containing on the average 30 eggs. The egg 

 is about three-eighths of an inch long and a tenth of an inch in diameter, and is of 

 a light brown colour. It is hatched in the ground in three weeks, and brings 

 forth a small bright green locust. The colour is soon changed to a dark colour and 

 these young ones are doing all the damage ; the old ones are dying and flying 

 away, as comparatively speaking there are few full-grown ones to be seen. 



"The blacks are collecting these young dark ones by pouring boiling water over 

 them to kill them and carry them to Highbury and Friends for payment. A dollar 

 per diem is easily earned, many making two. They are measured in paraffin oil 

 tins, which contain four to eight shillings worth. 



"At Highbury they are burying the dead and at Friends burning them, and the 

 stench at both these places is something fearful, resembling the smell of a decom- 

 posing human body, but worse. 



" Mr. Hunter, of Friends, informed me that a few settled on seven and a half 

 acres of canes, and he killed forty-seven millions in two weeks and got rid of them. 



" In my opinion the locusts are not so numerous and are not doing as much 

 damage as perhaps may be supposed, and the inhabitants seem to expect that 

 they will all disappear with the northerly wind generally prevailing about this 

 time of the year. 



" This report is necessarily rather hurried, but I shall be only too glad to provide 

 any further information that may be required." 



In Berbice the people were paid by the Government to collect the locusts in 

 kerosene tins and roughly $26,000 (£5,416 13s. id.) was thus spent. The recent 

 locust infestation cost the Government nothing like so much as this, and the 

 situation was controlled by the Plant Diseases and Pests (Prevention) Ordinance. 

 No money was paid out for the collection of locusts in any stage. 



Arrival and Distribution of the 1917 Swarm. 



The arrival of the immense swarm of locusts which invaded British Guiana from 

 Venezuela by way of the boundary station of Yarakita in the North West District 

 was witnessed by only a few people. The exact date of the invasion is uncertain, 

 as there are a number of conflicting statements. It is safe to say that it took 

 place somewhere late in the month of June 1917. The passing of the swarm is 

 supposed to have lasted from 7 a.m. till 3 p.m. on the same day. 



