374 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [February, 



become established in some localities. I remember that when, in the 

 early spring of 1898, I showed Dr. Ritsema Bos, the Dutch entomologist, 

 some of our scaliest trees in New Jersey, he was not at all impressed, 

 and said that he had seen trees in German orchards quite as badly 

 covered by this newly-introduced pest. Now, let us pass laws excluding 

 all European and Canadian fruit stocks. 



Incidentally, Mr. Webster expressed himself on the effect of cold on 

 the pernicious scales: "Doubtless the cold of winter kills the young, 

 but the mature scales survive and continue breeding." My own experi- 

 ence is exactly opposite. Specimens that begin breeding in fall never 

 survive the winter, and the young produced late in the season are also 

 apt to succumb. The specimens that set in October and become dor- 

 mant in the form of little round black scales are the forms that survive 

 and resume breeding the June following. 



Mr. E. H. Forbush spoke on the destruction of hairy caterpillars by 

 birds, and gave a list of those that had been found feeding upon them 

 in Massachusetts. Our good friend the English sparrow is very close to 

 the end of the list, and I cannot but think the habit exceptional in this 

 bird. At all events my experience with this species has been that it 

 keeps off more effective birds than itself, and thus far counterbalances 

 what little good it may actually do. Nevertheless, Mr. Forbush is right 

 in urging more systematic field observation to help us to a real knowledge 

 of bird habits. 



Mr. Johnson spoke on '' The destructive pea louse, a new and import- 

 ant economicjspecies of the genus Nectarophora." This was an account 

 of a most remarkable invasion by a species not even described, which 

 extended along the Atlantic Coast region from Connecticut to North 

 Carolina, but was, perhaps, more severe in the southern range of the 

 species. At all events, the percentage of injury was not as great in 

 New Jersey as Mr. Johnson made it in Maryland. Toward the end of 

 the season Mr. Johnson found predatory forms in such quantities that 

 the aphids were disappearing and a fungus developed in many specimens. 

 Similar conditions developed in New Jersey a little later and the fungus 

 was determined for me by Dr. Thaxter as the common Entomophthora 

 aphrdis. 



I can scarcely agree with Mr. Johnson, however, when he says : "As 

 to the future, candidly, I am of the opinion that it will be many a day be- 

 fore we will see a repetition of such destruction to the pea crop by 

 Nectarophora destructor.''' Mr. Johnson spoke in August, and at that 

 time I would have been inclined to agree with him. But since that time 

 the field peas on the college farm have been ruined, precisely as they 

 were in the fall of 1898, though the character of the season was exactly 

 opposite. I have advised our growers for canneries to place no depend- 

 ence on crops to mature after June 15, the date when, in New Jersey, this 

 insect became destructive. 



