222 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [September, 



The bowls covering the saucers in which one dram was used showed like 

 results. Two square boxes which were not tight, covering graduates 

 with two drams of liquid had all insects unaffected and the material 

 scarcely half gone. The two bowls under which the bisulphide was 

 poured on the ground were then lifted and all the aphids were found dead. 

 All the other hills covered by bowls showed all the lice dead and not all 

 the bisulphide evaporated. The hills first treated were again examined 

 and there was no sign of recovered life anywhere visible. Bowls, gradu- 

 ates, and bisulphide were left with Mr. Taylor, and all the treated hills 

 were marked for later examination and to note the effects of the chemical. 

 The experiments were made in the middle of a very hot day, the ther- 

 mometer 93 in the shade, little or no wind blowing, and the sand so hot 

 that it burnt through shoe soles and could scarcely be handled more than 

 a few moments at a time. Many of the vines showed the edges of the 

 leaves, when the covers were removed, yellowed and set with numerous 

 drops of a clear liquid. I feared permanent injury, but instructed Mr. 

 Taylor, if he found that the plants died, to continue his work before the 

 sun was high or after it was quite low. He wrote me under date of July 

 1 9th: " The hills you treated when here last started to grow nicely, except 

 the two hills where the Carbon was poured on the ground; that killed 

 them. The treated hills showed no lice at last examination." 



I am quite satisfied from the experiments above recorded, and from 

 others that were not recorded, but were simply made to settle practical 

 questions, that, in melon fields at least, bisulphide of Carbon can be used 

 satisfactorily and effectively. It has the enormous advantage of reaching 

 everything on all parts of the plant; not a specimen escaping. With a 

 stock of from fifty to one hundred light covering boxes about eighteen 

 inches in diameter, as many shallow dishes and a bottle of bisulphide the 

 infested hills in a field can be treated in a comparatively short time. 



Contagious Disease of the Chinch Bug. Under this title Prof. Snow has 

 given us a pamphlet of 247 pages, principally occupied by reports from 

 experimenters in various counties of the State of Kansas. The report is 

 one of very great interest from a variety of standpoints, and there is no 

 doubt that we are getting a little nearer to an understanding of the factors 

 in the problem of destroying this serious pest by means of the disease 

 attacking it; and yet the teaching of this report is that there is nothing at 

 all certain about the matter, because, although 1852 experiments are re- 

 corded as successful against 1053 unsuccessful, and 665 doubtful, those 

 successful experiments are not in all cases to be accepted without ques- 

 tion; while on the other hand a very fair explanation is given for the lack 

 of success in one class of cases. It appears from the report that meteor- 

 ological conditions are very important in either facilitating or checking 

 the spread of the disease, and that with the best kind of infection for use, 

 an absence of moisture will prevent the spread of the disease. This 

 limits the usefulness of this disease enormously; success depending upon 

 that most fickle of all things, the weather. In many of the more eastern 



