J^O. 2. 1 The Locust Invasion of 1889—92. 79 



destroying- the young locusts systematically. The military also rendered 

 useful service in destroying the swarms that invaded cantonments. 



The method that was most generally adopted was that of driving the 

 young locusts into trenches, but the Cyprus screens desciibed in the pre- 

 vious report were also used to a small extent, and useful work was done 

 by driving the young into heaps of straw and bushes which were then 

 set on fire. In this way many thousands of maunds of young locusts 

 were destroyed, and the actual crops were in many places protected- 

 The numbers of the locusts, however, that bred in waste places in the 

 Punjab was so enormous that success was only partial, and vast hordes 

 became full grown and acquired wings. Towards the latter part of 

 May large flights of these young locusts began to pass over Central 

 India and the Morth-West Provinces into the Central Provinces and 

 Bengal, at the same time penetrating into Kathiawar. During the 

 months of June, July and August, these flights seem to have flown 

 about from district to district, descending at intervals to devour the 

 young kharif crops and doing a good deal of damage over restricted 

 areas, especially in Bengal. They did not lay any eggs, however, and 

 little was heard of them after August, the supposition being that b}' 

 this time tiiey had been pretty completely destroyed by tlie birds and 

 unfavourable climatic condition of the damp regions into which they had 

 penetrated. 



The immediate result of the departure of these flij>hts seems to have 

 been to clear the Punjab of locusts, but the insect was still prevalent in 

 Sind and Rajputana, and soon sifter the commencement of the rains 

 of the south-west monsoon, flights began to be again reported 

 from the Punjab. During the raii\y season of 1891, egg-laying went on 

 as usual in Sind and Rajputana, while in the Punjab, eggs were reported 

 in comparatively small numbers, at first frotn the south-eastern 

 districts, and afterwards throughout the whole area, thus pointing to the 

 supposition that the eggs were laid by flights from Rajputana. Breed- 

 ing seems to have gone on at intervals throughout the rainy season of 

 1891, young locusts being still reported in the Pimjab Salt Range in 

 November. But they were very much fewer than before, and the birds 

 — especially the Rosy-pastor {Pastor roseus) — destroyed them in vast 

 numbers. The locusts themselves also were so much parasitised and 

 diseased that the work of the people in destroying them was very much 

 lightened, and by the close of the year the pest seems to have been 

 pretty completely wiped out. 



In March 189iJ a few locusts again appeared in Sind and the western 

 frontier of the Punjab, and laid eggs in Dera Ismail Khan, while in 

 May some stray flights penetrated into the North- West Provinces and 



A 2 



