LOCUST SWARMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 October 1943, Page 4

LOCUST SWARMS

NEVER-ENDING BATTLE WAGED METHOD DESCRIBED POISON BAIT LAID BEFORE ADVANCING HORDES A conference unique in the history of the Middle East opened in Cairo recently, writes Michael Cottam in the “Eyptian Mail.” Many of the members are just back from long expeditions into the desert, where they have been carrying on a planned battle against the locust. When the expedition takes the field the Locust Officer must find from the Bedouin and the population of small desert villages, the drivers for his lorries (usually Sudanese) and the scouts who will later on locate the locustswarms. NEED OF GUIDES As he moves into the desert, the officer must call on the Emil’ of each tribal territory and obtain a guide to bring the party through that tribal area and pass them on to a guide for the next district. Day after day the string of lorries may be crossing one of the huge saltpans. A hand dipped in cautiously into the water which comes bubbling up will come out pickled with the strong sodium solution. In some areas, the Arabs, unused to white men and suspicious of them, always carry their arms and have a finger far too lightly on the trigger. It is when the rains come that operations against the locust begin. Many parts of the desert are fertile and the grey and yellow expanse will suddenly be covered in a fresh green vegetation. Swarms of adult locusts, sensing the moisture and warmth, light upon these green expanses and lay their eggs. EGGS BURIED

Each female will lay 100 to 150 eggs in a little sac the size of a man's finger. These are buried three or four inches in the ground. In warm and moist weather the eggs may hatch in a fortnight. When the hoppers are hatched, they separate almost at once to advance across the desert in one extended line, eating as they go. The front of this line will be continuous and even, but behind the locust front rank the horde streams out, ending in a thin patch of stragglers. It is at this moment that the locust is vulnerable to attack. The expedition hears that a swarm has laid eggs in a certain area.

The lorries are loaded with poison bait and preparations made to attack. The bait is bran poisoned with about 1 per cent of sodium arsenic. This is harmless to animals, but fatal to the locust in 24 hours.

The lorry can drive along within a few yards of the advancing horde, spreading the poisoned bait before them. The bran is moist and the locusts set upon it and eat and die in their millions.

One of these big bands of hoppers may have a front running up to two or three miles. In more hilly country, the front will be smaller and the locusts march more in column than in line. The duration of this march is about six weeks.

All this time the locust is growing towards maturity, spreading over thfi country and destroying every green thing. If they are not tackled before six weeks are up, they will take wing and fly as an adult swarm to land upon the young crops of corn, maize and millet. DAILY SIESTA During the day the locust takes a siesta. The midday sun makes the ground too hot and the locusts will climb in their hundreds of thousands upon any bush or low scrub and hang motionless until it is time to move forward again feeding. The adult locust carries eggs which do not ripen until the swarm again reaches a warm and moist climate. The period between maturity and a further laying.may be long, but in some parts, particularly in India, the locust may breed twice in the same season.

The locust can fly enormous distances, moving from the winter rains in one country to summer rains in another and thus, they may be laying and breeding in areas thousands of miles apart throughout the whole year.