Some Results of Studies on the Desert Locust (Schistocerca gregaria, Forsk.) in India

Abstract

[A voluminous general report on the organisation and the results of the locust investigations carried out in India in 1931–1938, under the auspices of the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research, was officially submitted to the Council by Rao Bahadur Y. Ramchandra Rao in 1941, but its publication has been postponed until after the war.A copy of the report has been sent, by permission of the Council, to the Anti-Locust Research Centre at the Imperial Institute of Entomology, for information, and it proved to contain a wealth of data and of ideas, only some of which have been published in various preliminary papers by its author and by his colleagues. In view of the great scientific and practical value of the report, it appeared necessary to make at least its main findings available to other entomologists working on the subject, and permission has been obtained from the author and from the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research for the publication of some sections of the report. Only a few sections, selected and edited by Dr. B. P. Uvarov, are being published below, and it should be stressed that their publication in the abridged form does not in any way detract from the value of the complete report, which, it is hoped, will be published at the earliest opportunity for the benefit of all workers on the locust problem.]