LOCUSTS ON THE STEPPES AND IN GEORGIA. 
4& 
dirty white, with gray spots. The latter, I was told, have a whitish gray body and 
white wings. 
He states that the former are much less dreaded than the latter. 
Pallas 81 asserts that Gnjllus italicus appears annually on the dry emi- 
nences in the arid southern regions from the European boundary as far 
as the Irtish and the mountains of Altai, but that it is only in particular 
years it multiplies in such numbers as to become pernicious. The larger 
species, G. migratorius, which is also common in this region, is also fre- 
quently observed mingled to a certain extent in the swarms of the 
former. Dr. Clark, who traveled over the steppes of Tartary, observed 
immense swarms of both species; but has confused the names of the 
species by designating the former (G. italicus) as G. migratorius and the 
latter (P. migratorius) as G. tartaricus. He says his guide informed 
him that instances had occurred of persons being suffocated by a fall 
of locusts on the steppes. 82 
In 1770, great swarms of G. migratorius appeared north of the Irtish 
in the Barbara Steppe. 83 On the west side of the Caspian Sea the locust 
plague appeared in Georgia and near the mouth of the Volga, almost 
always with the south wind, borne in great clouds out of Eriwan toward 
Georgia and Daghistan. 84 
The following, from a daily paper, applies to 1878 or 1879 : 
A plague of locusts. — A detachment of Russian troops, hound for General LazerofPs 
expedition against the Turcomans, met with a curious misadventure near the Georgian 
town of Elizavetopol. At a few versts from the town the soldiers encountered the 
wing of an army of locusts, reput ed to be twenty miles in length and broad in propor- 
tion. The officers in charge did not like to turn back, repelled by mere insects, and, 
pushing on, soon became surrounded by the locusts. These appeared to have mistaken 
the soldiers for trees, and swarmed by thousands around them, "crawling over their 
bodies, lodging themselves inside their helmets, penetrating their clothes and their 
knapsacks, filling the barrels of their rifles, and striving to force themselves into the 
unfortunate men's ears and noses." The commander gave the order for the troops to 
push on double-quick for Elizavetopol, but the road was so blocked with locusts that 
the soldiers grew frightened, and, after wavering a few minutes, a regular stampede 
took place. 
Led by a non-commissioned officer of keen vision, who had observed a few huts a 
short distance from the road, the troops dashed across the fields, "slipping about 
over the crushed and greasy bodies of locusts as though they had been on ice." The 
huts were soon reached, and the officers rushed inside, but the refuge proved to be of 
little value, as the premises were already in the possession of the enemy. The peas- 
ants told the correspondent of the Kavkas that for days they had been besieged by the 
vermin, the insects filling the wells and tainting the water, crowding into the ovens 
and spoiling the bread and preventing any food being cooked or stored. At intervals 
the villagers issued from their houses and made onslaughts on the locusts, killing 
them by thousands, and carting them away afterward to the fields for manure. The 
soldiers were detained prisoners by the insects for forty-eight hours, and on their 
march to Elizavetopol in the rear of the locust army they found every blade of grass 
and green leaf destroyed and the peasants reduced to beggary. 
81 " Travels through the southern Provinces of the Russian Empire, " Engl, transl., ii, 4, 22. 
62 " Travels in Russia, Tartary, and Turkey," 4th ed., i, 133.. 
• 83 Georgi " Siberische Reise," pt. i, p. 28.— Ritter. 
M Gamba " Voyage dans la Russie meridionale 1820-'24," ii, 226. 
