[66] REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
for the destruction of the eggs. And similar provident regulations had such an effect 
that these pestilent inseets not only did not then penetrate into our Puglia Daunia, 
but were entirely destroyed in the provinces adjacent. 
Ah the result of all t hese experiences, it may he said that the means of exterminating 
these most pernicious insects may be reduced to the following: 
1. In the first period, and particularly in the months of September and Octoher, the 
ground in which the eggs may be deposited should be turned up with the plow or the 
spade, and the eggs collected and buried in trenches;* and there should be introduced 
into the ploughed fields a number of swine, who will devour a surprising quantity up 
to the t hird period, 
2. The second important thing to do, when the eggs are about to expand, is to crush 
as many as posssible under the feet of the peasants and with heavy wooden instru- 
ments; and during the whole period in which they have not the use of their wings, 
and are incapable of taking flight, but only of hopping, let them be surrounded with 
straw in the morning, and towards the evening, when found in great numbers over 
any extent of territory, attack them with tire on all sides, so that they cannot escape 
being burned. 
3. When they have later unfolded their wings, which were at first enveloped, as it 
■were, in two buds upon their backs, use should be made of the spread sheets and the 
deep trenches. And wherever it is attempted to drive them from a cultivated field 
into a neighboring wood or into some unfilled region, let a loud noiso be made by 
beating upon instruments of copper <t other metallic substances, striking Mow-, of 
steel, and making a clamorous sound. And, finally, as soon as the Beason of their cop- 
ulation arrives, and the first swarm of locusts disperses, to wing its way into new ter- 
ritory, rising in enormous multitudes, the condition of turbulence in which they are 
fhen found furnishes to the peasants the most favorable occasion to destroy an immense 
quantity of their progeny by active and quick assault. 
When the means above indicated are judiciously employed at various periods of their 
life, they will unquestionably produce the most advantageous effects. 
OF THE LOCUSTS WHICH DESOLATED VARIOUS PROVINCES OF SPAIN 
FROM THE YEAR 1754 UNTIL 1757. 
[From Bowles's (William) " Introdaziono alia Storia Naturale e alia Geografia Fisicadi Spagna; pubbh- 
cata dal Cao. D. O. N. D'Azara. Tradotta da F. Milizia." Parma, 1783. Tomo ii, pp. 1-24.) 
Translated by F. P. Spoffobd. 
The locusts of which I am about to speak are found constantly in the southern 
regions of Spain, and especially in the uncultivated lands of Estremadura; but they 
ordinarily excite no attention, because they are found in moderate quantities and live 
upon the wild herbs, without touching the sown fields or the gardens, or penetrating 
into the houses. The countrymen see them hop about with indifference and feed upon 
the grass of the meadows ; and their indolence causes them to lose the favorable oc- 
casion of exterminating them every year, a neglect which they vainly seek to repair 
when the mischief becomes without remedy. 
The progeny which these insects leave every year is not very great, because the 
number of their males infinitely exceeds that of the females ;t and if for ten years the 
generation of the two sexes should be equal their multiplication would be 60 prodigious 
that they would devour the entire vegetable kingdom ; the birds and quadrupeds would 
die of famine, and the men would have to make their last meal of the locusts. In the 
year 1754 such a quantity of female locusts was bred that, in the following year, they 
inundated La Manche and Portugal, bringing with them all the horrors of dearth and 
of misery. The same calamity spread quickly over the neighboring provinces, carry- 
ing with it terror and desolation into Murcia and Valencia, and into the four kingdoms 
of Andalusia. * * * 
The locusts always deposit their eggs in uncultivated ground, and have need of a 
certain degree of heat in order to hatch them ; whence it may be inferred that they 
cannot propagate in cold and cultivated regions, which are only subject to certain 
passing invasions of such legions as are transported by the winds. 
The locusts, which upon issuing from the egg are black and no larger than a small 
fly, swarm about the clods of earth and among a species of rushes, leaping one upon 
another, and occupying a space of three to four feet in circumference and two inches 
in height, so that a body of them resembles a black object which moves along the 
ground. The first opportunity which presented to me the view of such a spectacle 
surprised me from a distance of ten to twelve paces, because it conveyed the mournful 
fWhy not destroy them effectually, as by burning I 
* "We nave not found this to be the case with 0. gpretut. — C. T. 
