91 
by the locust proved to be a temporary region, and the insects died off, 
except in a few sheltered nooks, where they were destroyed by the local 
inhabitants acting under Mr. Reed's advice, chiefly by drawing thorny 
bushes, loaded with sufficient weight, over the young locusts before 
they were more than half an inch long. Xo separate reports upon the 
subject were published, Mr. Reed's reports being published in the 
Diario Oficial. Since the locust emergency Mr. Reed has been confin- 
ing himself mainly to systematic entomology, and has published sev- 
eral interesting papers upon Diptera and Hymenoptera. 
INDIA. 
Among the English colonies the government of India stands out 
very prominently in the support which it has given to economic ento- 
mology. A most interesting account of the beginning and growth of 
this work has been transmitted to me by Mr. E. C. Cotes, from which I 
take, for the purposes of this paper, the following facts : 
The present arrangement was the outgrowth of two reports, one on 
the wheat and rice weevil and the other on insecticides, which were 
drawn up unofficially in the early part of the year 1888 by Mr. Cotes, 
at the suggestion of the secretary to the government of India, in the 
Revenue and Agricultural Department. Mr. Cotes was at that time 
in charge of the entomological collections of the Indian Museum, and 
the reports were published by the government, with the consent of 
the trustees of the Museum, as the first two numbers of an official 
series entitled Notes on Economic Entomology. The title of this serial 
was subsequently changed to Indian Museum Notes, when the trustees 
of the Museum consented to charge themselves officially with the con- 
duet of the investigation. The work really commenced in March, 1888, 
when Mr. Cotes was deputed to attend an agricultural conference at 
Delhi, where the part to be taken in the scheme by the various pro- 
vincial governments was discussed. As a result of this conference 
the departments of land records and agriculture, attached to the vari- 
ous provincial governments, undertook to arrange for the submittal 
of reports and specimens from officials concerned with agriculture in 
all parts of India. The task of collating the results, and also of car- 
rying on such investigations as could be conducted at headquarters, 
was intrusted to Mr. Cotes, aided by a staff of six office assistants, 
whom he was permitted to select. Circular letters were sent out to all 
parts of the country, and large numbers of reports and specimens soon 
began to come in. The results were published from time to time and 
freely circulated among all interested. One of the greatest of the early 
difficulties was the identification of species, but this was accomplished 
mainly through correspondence with specialists in different parts of 
the world. The results of six years of work are, in brief: The ascer- 
taining of the identity of several hundred of the more important 
injurious species which affect crops in India, the recording of the 
