THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 239 



whole contents milky with myriads upon myriads of these microscopic or- 

 ganisms precisely the same as those taken from the diseased larvae. He 

 also found by experiment that the disease could be communicated to other 

 species of caterpillars. Experiments continued during the present year 

 have shown that by propagating this form of bacteria in the manner des- 

 cribed, and mixing a pint of a well-charged culture with a barrel of water 

 and syringing cabbages with this fluid, the disease may be introduced,thus 

 furnishing us with another means of defence against some of these injur- 

 ious insects. 



A new strawberry insect has appeared in our midst which is deserving 

 of notice. In the latter part of June last pubHc attention was called to 

 this subject by some paragraphs which appeared in the newspapers. The 

 dej^redations of the insect were first observed in Staten Island, New York, 

 causing grave apprehensions among the strawberry growers therej it ap- 

 peared also about the same time in some parts of Michigan. The Ento- 

 mological Bureau of the Department of Agriculture in Washington prompt- 

 ly took steps to investigate the subject, and the Chief of the Bureau, Prof. 

 C. V. Riley, proceeded in person to enquire into the character and extent 

 of the injury,with the view of suggesting measures for its abatement. The 

 results of this work have not yet reached us, beyond some brief notices 

 which appeared in the press, in which the nature of the injury was stated 

 and the name of the insect given. This new pest was found to be a small 

 curculio which has been known to Entomologists in this country for more 

 than fifty years under the name of Authonoimis viusachis. It is a small 

 snout beetle which measures, including the beak or snout, only one-tenth 

 of an inch. The body is of a dull reddish colour, punctured, and dotted 

 and spotted with white ; different specimens vary much in their general 

 hue, some being found very dark, occasionally almost black. Heretofore it 

 has been met with only in the collections of Entomologists, who have found 

 it to be very generally destributed throughout the Middle, Southern and 

 Western States, and also in Canada, but nowhere in any particular abun- 

 dance, and no one had thus far suspected it to be guilty of any injurious 

 propensities ; indeed, little or nothing has been known of its habits or his- 

 tory. A few days after its appearance in this new role — as a strawberry 

 pest — was announced in the United States, I received a package from Mr. 

 J. C. Morgan, an energetic strawberry grower in Barrie, Ontario, intimat- 

 ing that a destructive insect which had never been noticed before was ser- 

 iously injuring some of the strawberry beds in that neighbourhood, an 



