OF WASHINGTON, VOLUME XIII, 1911. 77 



BRIEF NOTES OF TWO RECENT TRIPS. 



[PLATE V.] 

 BY L. O. HOWARD. 



[Author's Abstract.] 



The speaker mentioned a number of incidents of entomo- 

 logical interest in recent trips to portions of Europe and to 

 California and the southwestern United States. 



He stated that, sailing direct from New York to Naples the 

 end of April, he carried with him some 200 living specimens 

 of Chilocorus bivulnerns, and .\ficroiveisa misella, packed with 

 extreme care by Mr. Herbert Barber in a wooden box about a 

 foot cube. (Plate V.) This contained wooden boxes (about 1 

 by 3 by 4 inches) with tight-fitting, rabbeted covers. Two large 

 holes were made in the cover of each small box, and a small 

 cleat (about one-fourth inch thick) was nailed across one end. 

 Pieces of branches covered with scale were cut the length of 

 the box inside and fastened with brads through the ends. In 

 the case of branches too large for the thickness of the box 

 they were split and the halves fastened as were the round 

 ones. After the coccinellids were put in, a piece of bolting 

 cloth or organdie was put over the top and held in place by 

 the pressure of the cover, so as to allow free circulation of air 

 through the ventilating holes. The boxes were tied up bot- 

 tom to bottom and cover to cover with the cleats at opposite 

 ends, leaving a free space between the covers. To further 

 facilitate ventilation a narrow cleat was fastened along the 

 sides of the pile of boxes and the whole was finally wrapped 

 up for shipment. By the courtesy of the steamer officials this 

 package was hung by a cord to a beam in the ceiling of the 

 cold room of the steamer and there remained until landing at 

 Naples. It was then carried soon to Silvestri's laboratory at 

 Portici and opened. The journey had been perfectly success- 

 ful, and practically all of the insects were alive. He exhib- 

 ited, photographs of Professor Silvestri and Doctor Leonardi 

 and of the mulberry orchard in which Silvestri is liberating 

 coccinellids imported from all parts of the world in order to 

 feed on Diaspis pentagona. He also described the glass- 

 cylinder method of rearing coccinellids in use in Silvestri's 

 laboratory at Portici. 



He further mentioned a visit to Rome, where he called upon 

 Celli, Grassi, and Tiraboschi, and gave his impressions of the 

 antimalarial work done in the Roman Campagna and of the 

 great and enormously favorable contrast between the condi- 

 tions existing there at present and those existing on the occa- 

 sion of a former visit in the summer of 1902. He spoke in 



