^Q^ |. ] Miscellaneonn Notes. *^^ 



Dui'in"- tbe p:>st year a vevy large number of reports^ m:iny of them 



^ . T' 1 4- illustrated by specimens, have been forwnrdcd 



Locusts 111 Kohat. t t it 



to the Indian Museum from all parts of 



India, in connection with the locusts which have been so widely pre- 

 valent. With a few unimportant exceptions, these locusiS have all be- 

 longed to the species Acridium peregrinnm Oliv., which is the chief 

 inigratory locust of the whole of Northern Africa and South-Eastern 

 Asia. In the early part of 1891 a detailed report was issued, in which 

 the information collected on the subject of this insect was brought down 

 to the 1st December 1890. The present number of the i^^'oz^.j^ contains 

 what has since been ascertained on the subject of its jirevalence in 

 Northern Africa, Persia, and Turkish Arabia, also on tlie subject of 

 the parasites, disease, and other natural enemies that attack it. The 

 reports relating to its presence in India are so numerous that they will 

 take some time to arrange. In the meanwhile we take the liberty to 

 quote the follfiwing from Cjiptain C. G. Parson's interesting account 

 of tlie invasion of the Kohat district, as it is very typical of wliat 

 occurred elsewhere. This report is dated 19th June 1891. It was for- 

 warded to the Museum by the Commissioner and Superintendent of the 

 Peshawar Division : — 



" There has been immense opportunity for ol)serving locusts in the Kohat district 

 for about the middle of April tlie plains of the Kohat Talisil became alive with younj; 

 ones of the Pere^iinum species wliich marched down from egg-beds which principally 

 lay beyond the border in the lower part of the hills. Great efiorts were made to drive 

 these larvse into trenches, and enormous numbers were destroyed by mere burial in this 

 way, but the insects were too numerous for a thinly populated district to cope with, 

 and they began to appear from all sides. As they got bigger and developed into the 

 stage (bright yellow green) antecedent to fledging, vast armies marched directly upon 

 the well wooded station of Kohat. They invaded every quarter of it. '1 hey crossed 

 the roads resolutely, swam the water-courses, climbed the walls, filled the compounds, 

 and scaled the trees, palings, walls of houses, and telegraph poles. There was no nook 

 or corner that was not alive with these hoppers, and wherever vegetation was thick it 

 was seething with them. In a very few days the trees began to thin, and in ten days 

 there were no leaves left anywhere. The station had all the appearance of winter. 

 The gardens were stri[)ped clean, rose bushes, vines, flowers, and every kind of plant 

 being devoured wholesale. Trees with soft bark, and supple bushes, were so damaged 

 that their stems and boughs were skinned. The only tree which the hoppers disliked for 

 food was the " Hakain " or Persian lilac, and these trees have alone remained (jreen, and 

 for some reason the only flower they eschewed was the larkspur. Wlietlier all the trees 

 and bushes will recover or not is a matter of conjecture, but the Shisham and Mulberry 

 trees and others are beginning again to shoofc. I saw several Farasb (Tamarisk) trees 

 with their trunks red and raw from base to top where they had been stripped of bark. 

 By the way the hoppers swarmed up and remained packed on the telegraph poles; they 

 appeared to attempt to eat even their dry wood. The station exhaled the most offen- 

 sive odours, for dead or alive the masses of insects stunk. Many of them entered the 

 houses and ate holes in curtains and hangings. It was impossible to keep the rooms 

 free of them. Ry congregating in one place in this way they they laid themselves 



