LOCUSTS AND OTHER MIGRATORY INSECTS IN INDIA

Abstract

IN a land of continental features like India there are major insect pests which have the capacity of spreading from one part of the country to another. Where such pests appear more or less regularly and are of relatively confined distribution the provincial entomologists should be well fitted to study them and devise control measures. In the case of the desert locust, for example, swarms may appear in the Punjab, the United Provinces and Rajputana, and are known to have been derived from outbreak areas in Baluchistan, Iran and Arabia. Similarly, locusts from Rajputana and the Punjab may migrate as far afield as Assam and Madras. It will be clear that, in such cases, the provincial entomologist would be severely handicapped if he had to attempt the control of an insect the origin of which was in a distant province of India.