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‘File 16/37A-I Anti-Locust Measures’ [229r] (457/900)
The record is made up of 1 file (448 folios). It was created in 31 Aug 1942-18 May 1943. It was written in English and Arabic. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
5
of rewards graduated according to distance from habitation, with a wide
discretion to the District Officer, is worth consideration.
Control measures at breeding grounds.—(1) When a breeding ground
is located, the first step is to ring it by a method suitable to the soil
(Method 2, Appendix).
(2) The actual nlethod used will depend on the nature of the soil:
generally trenching is the simplest and cheapest. It is important that the
jg* work shall be thoroughly done, hence payment for supervision and any
essential labour would be fully justified. It is important that breeding
grounds in remote places or on difficult soil should not be neglected.
Egg destruction. —Where a breeding ground has been properly ringed,
no rewards for egg destruction are necessary. But any breeding ground
which, for any reason, it is not possible to ring should be dealt with by the
destruction of the eggs, on an organized system. Ploughing is ineffective,
flooding is of limited application and must be protracted. The digging out
and destruction of the egg-masses is effective—so far as it goes—but always
leaves behind a large number of eggs to produce hoppers.
Cultivated plots within a ringed breeding ground. —When a ringed
area iucludes crops or other vegetation, there are two problems :—
(а) To ensure that hoppers do not find sufficient food within the ringed
area to enable them to leave eventually as fliers, and
(б) To protect the crops.
The first danger can largely be met by subsidiary ringing (Method
2, Appendix) or by any of the other means recommended for
hopper destruction [Methods 3, 3 (a) or 3 (6), Appendix].
(c) Crops can be protected by individual trenches surrounding the
fields, the construction of which should be the duty of the
cultivators themselves—but under proper supervision.
Hoppers. —The total length of the hopper period varies greatly but
may be put at four to eight weeks according to the food supply and climatic
conditions. Control measures are far more effective against young hoppers
before the second moult than subsequently and also much easier.
Methods for the destruction of hoppers may be either chemical or
mechanical.
Chemical Methods.—Contact insecticides— as distinct from stomach
insecticides.
Many satisfactory, though expensive, contact insecticides are known,
but their use on a wide scale in India is not immediately practicable. (See,
however, for their use in special circumstances Method 3, Appendix.)
Stomach insecticides (which act through being eaten).
(a) Baits.—Of these the most applicable to Indian conditions is sodium
fluosilicate which is deadly to locusts but has been shown by actual experi
ments in India to be innocuous to domestic animals—even in far larger
doses than could possibly be consumed by a grazing animal. Locusts will
About this item
- Content
Correspondence, reports and other papers relating to efforts, undertaken by representatives of the Middle East Anti-Locust Unit (MEALU), to control desert locusts (first reported in western India in August 1942 (f 3)) along the Arab coast between Bahrain and Oman. The principal correspondents include: the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. at Bahrain (Edward Birkbeck Wakefield); the Chief Locust Officer (Reginald Charles Maxwell-Darling) and Locust Officer (Leslie Desmond Edward Foster Vesey-Fitzgerald) of MEALU, who arrived in Bahrain to carry out their work in October 1942; the Defence Officer for the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. (Lieutenant-Colonel H T Hewitt); representatives of the California-Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC); and representatives of the Bahrain shipping agent Gray, Mackenzie & Company.
The file includes:
- reports from Maxwell-Darling and Vesey-Fitzgerald, as well as from numerous other British officials from across the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. region, including the British Minister at Tehran, Sir Reader William Bullard, on locust observations. The observations include estimations of the size of swarms, movement and direction of insects, age and colour of animals;
- correspondence relating to arrangements for the shipment of locust poison bait from the Sudan Government in Khartoum, to Bahrain;
- correspondence relating to the arrangements of facilities for the MEALU team on the Trucial Coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. , chiefly arrangements for suitable vehicles (arranged with the assistance of CASOC and the Defence Officer for the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. ), experienced drivers and motor mechanics, finances, and rations;
- papers issued by MEALU, including instructions on reporting locust swarms (ff 136-137), and notes on locust campaigns in sparsely inhabited countries (ff 194-195, ff 385-386);
- a copy of a booklet entitled Methods of Locust Control , produced by the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research and published by the Government of India Press, Calcutta [Kolkota], 1941 (ff 226-236);
- a reprint of an academic journal article entitled Some results of studies of the Desert Locust (Schistocerca Gregaria, Forsk.) in India , by Rao Bahadur Y Ramchandra Rao (ff 266-278). The article is a reprint from the Bulletin of Entomological Research , volume 33, part 3, published December 1942;
- some papers relating to anti-locust activities in southern Iran.
The file contains a single letter in Arabic, a letter to the Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. from the Ruler of Qatar, Shaikh ‘Abdullāh bin Jāsim Āl Thānī (f 334).
- Extent and format
- 1 file (448 folios)
- Arrangement
The file’s contents are arranged in approximate chronological order, from the earliest item at the front to the latest at the end. The file notes at the end of the file (ff 424-449) mirror the chronological arrangement.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: The foliation sequence commences at the front cover with 1 and terminates at the inside back cover with 450; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. side of each folio.
An additional foliation sequence is also present in parallel between ff 2-423; these numbers are also written in pencil, but are not circled.
- Written in
- English and Arabic in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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‘File 16/37A-I Anti-Locust Measures’ [229r] (457/900), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/R/15/2/1544, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100034852387.0x00003a> [accessed 25 June 2026]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- IOR/R/15/2/1544
- Title
- ‘File 16/37A-I Anti-Locust Measures’
- Pages
- 226r:236v
- Author
- Indian Council of Agricultural Research
- Copyright
- ©Indian Council of Agricultural Research
- Usage terms
- Creative Commons Non-Commercial Licence