Aug. 3, 1908.] Agricultural Gazette of N.S. W. 669 



wool "from Van Demonsland." Next day I readied Florence, where I par- 

 ticularly wished to meet Prof. Berlese, who has done so much work on fruit- 

 flies. When I reached his laboratories next morning, I found he had just 

 left for Genoa, so telegraphed to him that I would follow on next morning. 

 His stall: showed me all their methods of work, and particularly their experi- 

 ments against the olive flies. One of the worst scale nsects in Italy is Diaspis 

 pentayona, which attacks the mulberry, and if neglected often kills the trees. 

 It is this scale that Prof. Berlese had gone to report upon, and had taken 

 some, hymenopterous parasites he had received from Japan to liberate them 

 in the mulberry gardens north of Genoa. I arrived at Genoa that evening, 

 met Professor Berlese, and had an interesting talk with him on his methods 

 of dealing with the olive flies, and gave him some idea of what we are doing 

 in Australia. I saw him off next morning, and then called upon Dr. Gestro, 

 who has charge of the Genoa Museum, where the D'Alberti collections, made 

 in New Guinea, are deposited. I also went to the botanical section of the 

 University of Genoa, where they have a very fine herbarium and collection 

 of living plants. 



From here I went to Vienna, via Milan, where I had to change trains, and 

 left the latter town at midnight, and passing through Northern Italy, reached 

 Vienna the following night. Next morning, I went to the Museum, and met 

 the Director, Dr. Ganghbaur, who introduced me to the staff, and placed the 

 collections at my disposal. This museum contains some very valuable col- 

 lections, and is particularly rich in economic ones, such as Signoret's collec- 

 tions of scale insects, Coccklw, and the combined collections of dijjtero, made 

 by 8chiner, "VVeidmann, Mik, Meigen, and Loew. I spent a considerable time 

 over these collections, and made many notes on Signoret's types of Australian 

 scale insects, and a number of notes on the named fruit-flies in the diptera. 



I then visited the laboratories of the Experiment Station of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, where I was shown over the buildings, and met Drs. 

 Wahl and Fulmer, who have charge of the economic entomology and vegetable 

 diseases of plants, and have made collections of all the pests found in Austria. 

 Among the leaf devouring caterpillars, the class of the web moths seem 

 to be the worst, while several weevils of the genus Cleonus do a great deal 

 of damage to sugar beet. After another morning in the museum, spent the 

 afternoon at the chemical laboratories, veterinary branch, viticultural and 

 peat branch. The latter deals with the utilisation of the large deposits of peat 

 which is largely used for fuel in manufacturing spirits. The Fisheries Branch 

 was closed, as they had a show on ar the Agricultural Show Grounds. The 

 following morning left for the Show Grounds at St. Marx at 7 'SO and reached 

 there a little after 8, before the crowd. The fish exhibit consisted of 

 about 300 glass-fronted tanks placed around the walls full of living fresh- 

 water fish (for which Austria is noted), some cf the fish so large that there 

 did not seem to be room for them to swim. There must have been at least 

 10,000 liWng fish exhibited, besides quantities of the small fry, showing their 

 development. I was invited to a conference of the Fisheries Experts by one 

 of the Commissioners to whom I wont for information, but had to leave 



