324 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [December, 



Fungus Gardens in Ants' Nests. In 1893, Moeller published, at Jena, a 

 paper on " Die Pilzgarten einiger Sudamerikamischer Ameisen," in which 

 he interestingly shows that the ants gather leaves and leaf fragments en- 

 tirely for the purpose of cultivating upon them certain kinds of fungus 

 growths which they use for food. They manifest sufficient intelligence to 

 prevent the formation of spores or conidia, forcing the plant to produce 

 what Moeller calls " Kohlrabis," upon which the ants feed. 



At the Springfield meeting of the A. A. A. S., Mr. N. T. Swingle, of 

 Washington, presented a paper before sections F and G, in which he re- 

 corded his observations of a similar habit in one of our North American 

 species, near Washington, D. C. The species is Atta tardigrada, and 

 by no means uncommon in the more southern parts of the United States. 

 We are just beginning to understand a little about the internal economy 

 of ants, and here we have a species at our doors which will repay the 

 closest study and may give us a considerable amount of information as 

 to the intelligent methods of these little creatures. 



A New Insect Disease. In "Science," September 2oth, Prof. S. A. 

 Forbes announces the discovery of a new germ disease of insects which 

 seems to promise good results from experiments made in the laboratory. 

 The organism is a Bacillus, larger than B. insectorum, and under natural 

 conditions attacking the squash bug, Anasa tristis. A number of species, 

 including the chinch-bug, have been dipped into infusions of Agar cultures 

 of this Bacillus, and it has proved fatal in a remarkably short time; the 

 effect becoming marked in a few seconds and death resulting in a few 

 minutes. The preliminary results seem to be extremely favorable; whether 

 field experiments will bear out the laboratory indications is an interesting 

 question. 



A New Parasite of the Mediterranean Flour Moth Epheitia kurhuirela 

 Zell. Until the present rearing, no parasite has been bred from this de- 

 structive mill pest in America. Two species, Bracon brevicornis and 

 Chremylus rubiginosus, have been bred from this insect by European 

 entomologists, and the former, as reported by Mr. Sidney Klein in the 

 Trans. Ent. Soc. of London for :8Sy (pp. ^2-54}, is' said to have been the 

 principal agent in clearing an infested warehouse. Since my discovery 

 of the flour moth in California in 1892, I have been eagerly watching for 

 the appearance of some natural reducing agent in that region. In Au- 

 gust, 1895, a San Francisco miller sent me a package of infested flour for 

 experimental purposes taken from one of the sprouts in his mill. This 

 material was placed in a breeding-cage, and September 2d I discovered a 

 small Hymenopterous parasite attacking a full-grown larva. Two weeks 

 later several parasites were removed, and were kindly determined for me 

 by Mr. Wm. H. Ashmead. The species proved to be Bracon hcbctor 

 Say, and falls into Mr. Ashmead's subgenus Habrobracon. It is a widely- 

 distributed species, and comes very close to Habrobracon gelechite Ashm. 

 which I have also reared from Canarsia hainmomfi. September 24th, 



