Nov., '08] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 439 



ABOUT GRASSHOPPERS. A Menace to Crops When They Appear in 

 Great Numbers. The boys who walk through the fields and see a few 

 grasshoppers jumping about little think perhaps that creatures ap- 

 parently so harmless actually eat people out of house and home some- 

 times in the West. They come in great droves and multiply into 

 greater droves and then overrun the country and eat the crops. 



They were so bad in a certain county of Utah a few years ago that 

 they defied all the efforts of the farmers to get rid of them, and the 

 result was that all the crops were destroyed. The following year the 

 farmers adopted a novel means of fighting the pests. They arranged a 

 series of entertainments to be given in the several towns of the 

 county, admission to which might be had on presentation at the door 

 of a half bushel of grasshoppers as a "ticket" dead grasshoppers, of 

 course. 



The notion caught and spread like a prairie fire, and at the first 

 entertainment 150 people appeared, each with a half bushel of the 

 pests. That county saved its crops. Newspaper. 



Doings of Societies. 



The Brooklyn Entomological Society met June 4th at 55 

 Stuyvesant Ave., Brooklyn, with 21 members and 9 visitors 

 present, including Prof. Silvestri, the eminent Italian entomolo- 

 gist and Prof. Wm. Morton Wheeler, of Harvard University, 

 Dr. J. J. Schoonhoven, president of the Brooklyn Institute, de- 

 partment of Microscopy, was elected an active member. 



Prof. John B. Smith exhibited enlarged microphotographs 

 of genitalia of the European Hydroccia nictitans taken by F. 

 X. Pierce of England. The latter scholar has divided the 

 species into four, largely on constant characters of genitalia. 

 In his revision of the American nictitans a few years ago Prof. 

 Smith split the species in three, much on the same grounds. 



Prof. Smith spoke on observations on cccropia cocoons. Of 

 these 1052 had been collected for data, the sound ones being 

 for the most part purposely rejected. Of one lot 9 were 

 healthy, 42 parasitized and 233 dead of disease. In a second 

 lot 152 were parasitized and 305 died before pupation. The 

 parasites were Ophiou and two species of Pimpla. 



The inference was that in the campaign against insect pests 

 most important results might be obtained through study of 

 disease inoculation. Two species of bacterial disease were 



