172 ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS. 



Late in 1899 I arrived in Natal, and was, as you may well imagine, 

 rapidly involved in what is known here as " the locust question." I 

 was quickly forced to recognize the efficiency and local applicability 

 of the arsenic solution. I found that it was applied in the follow- 

 ing ways: In the cane fields gangs of "Indians" (chiefly women) 

 were kept constantly at work laying down between the rows baits 

 made by dipping begasse in the solution. In the grass lands gangs 

 of Kaffirs, each with a paraffin (kerosene) tin full of solution, stalked 

 about placing the poison upon grass and herbage about the swarms, 

 applying it crudely by switches made by bundling together a few 

 twigs. 



I brought with me an American knapsack pump fitted with a 

 cyclone nozzle, and had the liquid sprayed on instead of switched. 

 It was even more efficacious, and in actual practice we found that 

 one man could get as far in an hour with 1 gallon of solution as 

 70 men could get with 70 gallons in seventy hours by the other 

 method. That spray pump was the first of its sort in Natal. Nowa- 

 days several hundred are imported annually for the destruction of 

 locusts. Owing to the rough handling the machines are subjected 

 to by the Kafirs, we find now that it pays us best to use the bucket 

 pump instead of the knapsack pump, the loss in labor, time, etc., 

 with this machine not being equal to the damage sustained by the 

 copper tanks. 



You will gather that we deal only with immature locusts. Nothing 

 is attempted with the winged individuals. This is so for two excel- 

 lent reasons : 



(1) Such work is impracticable (until the days of aerial naviga- 

 tion, when we can perhaps try net fishing). 



(2) We sustain no damage from the flying locusts. 



The latter statement requires some qualification, and to explain it 

 I must digress a little. 



Acridium purpuriferum deposits its eggs regularly each year be- 

 tween the first part of December and the middle of January in Natal. 

 The majority of eggs are laid just before mid-December; earlier 

 and later deposits are, in a sense, abnormal. These eggs hatch in 

 thirty days; therefore, about the middle of January the infested 

 areas (the littoral, as a rule) are swarming with young locusts. 

 These locusts will acquire wings when about 90 days old. Dur- 

 ing this interval we wage war against them, wherever they may be, 

 upon Crown lands or in native locations (areas of country set aside 

 for occupation by natives only) ; and at the same time our locust 

 officers, in the course of their duties, inspect private lands to see that 

 owners and occupiers are destroying the hopping locusts upon their 

 properties, as provided by law. 



The cost of this work to the State depends mainly, of course, upon 



