THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
51 
CYPRUS, 
by Lieut. -General Sir R. Biddulph, g.c.m.g., c.b., 
late H. M. High Commissioner, Cyprus. 
The manner in which the destruction of forests 
is accomplished by goats, is described by Darwin 
and others with regard to the island of St. Helena. 
‘‘The goats were introduced into the island in 1502, 
and increased there in a short time beyond all : 
measure. But as they only destroyed the young 
trees and respected the old, their ravages were not 
at first perceived. In 1710 the forests were still 
very thick; but in 1724 the old trees having ar- 
rived at the term of their existence, and having 
nearly all fallen, and those that ought to have 
replaced them not having sprung up, the forests 
disappeared almost suddenly, and were replaced 
by thick grass. The climatic disturbance thus j 
caused to the island was very great and mischie- j 
vous. In 1731 all stray animals were destroyed; 
but too late, as is always the case.” Darwin 
writing in 1836, adds: “Sandy Bay is nowadays so 
arid that it was necessary for me to see an official 
record to believe that trees had ever grown there . 5 
The French forest officer whom I have men- 
tioned, M. Madon, made a very careful examina- 
tion of the best-preserved parts of the forests, 
and showed the following results: — 
(1) For every hundred trees which were stand- 
ing, there were 72 that had been felled and were 
left lying on the ground to rot. 
(2) For the same number of standing trees (100) 
there were only 25 seedlings. 
The first shows the result of wasteful and reck- 
less woodcutting. The second is the result of the 
indiscriminate pasturage of goats. 
I have dwelt a little on this forest question 
because it has very sensibly affected the wealth 
and productiveness of the island. As the forests 
disappeared, so did the soil that covered the hills. 
That soil was washed down to the plains, choked 
the river-beds and formed malarious swamps, the 
hills became bare rocks incapable of growing a 
blade of grass, and the locust at once took posses- 
sion of the barren ground, whilst the absence of 
trees deprived the earth of its annually fertilising 
agent, leaf -mould. There is now a stony desert at 
the south-east of the island between Famagusta 
and Lamaca, where tradition says there was 
formerly a large forest, and to the east of the 
Mesaorea, on the now dry and desolate plateau, 
there are many lime-kilns now in ruins, which 
could not have been supplied except by a vegeta- 
tion that has now altogether disappeared. 
I have alluded to the appearance of the locust 
as being connected with the disappearance of the 
forests, and so much has been said about the 
locusts of Cyprus that I must not wholly pass 
them by without mention. The Cyprus locust is 
a small species, indigenous to the island, and is 
not the great migratory locust which is so well 
known. The young locusts make their appearance 
early in March, like very small flies in appearance, 
but they grow rapidly, and in a few days begin to 
hop along in masses. They do not begin to fly for 
about six weeks, and it is during the crawling 
stage that their destruction is effected. After 
they begin to fly nothing further can be done. 
The inventor of the system used fer destroying 
them is Mr. Mattei, a gentleman of Italian extrac- 
tion, whose family have been long settled in 
Cyprus. He had observed their habit of moving 
straight in masses, so that on arriving at any deep 
ditch or well, they fell in and were unable to 
extricate themselves. On one occasion he was 
watching a large swarm which approached the 
city of Nicosia; on reaching the walls they 
climbed up them, and where the top of the wall 
w r as broken they entered the town, but in some 
; places there was a smooth band of plaster on the 
top of the wall. He observed that they could not 
walk on this smooth surface, but fell back into 
the ditch. At once the idea flashed into his mind 
of making an artificial w r all with a slippery top to 
it to arrest their march. Filled with the idea he 
hurried home, arid the first thing that met his 
sight was a table-cover of shiny American cloth. 
Dragging it off* the table he began to cut it up 
into strips, in spite of the remonstrance of his 
wife, who thought he was out of his mind. These 
strips he sewed on to the top edge of lengths of 
canvas, and this originated the system w hick has 
continued with little change to the present time. 
Briefly the system was this: long screens of 
canvas about three feet high, with a band of 
oilcloth four inches wide running along the top 
edge of the screen, were stretched along the 
ground, supported by stakes driven into the 
