1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 7 



idea of using fungi as allies against insect pests has been worked in 

 America for several years, but the results do not seem to have been 

 as satisfactory as might have been expected. Naturally, the insects 

 are most injurious in dry weather, while the fungus will only flourish 

 when the air is moist. And the spread of Sporotnchum glohulifencm 

 among Chinch-bugs in Illinois was not shown to be hastened by 

 artificial innoculation ; under favourable conditions the disease was 

 propagated among the insects from spores normally present. 



The Mediterranean Flour Moth, Ephestia Kilhniella, Zell., is quite 

 a modern discovery, having been described only in 1879. Mr. W. G. 

 Johnson {App. to igth Rep. of State Entom. III.) has just issued an 

 interesting summary of our knowledge of the moth, which has already 

 given rise to a bibliography of seventy-nine papers. The species 

 multiplies in flour-mills to an alarming extent, and the armies of 

 caterpillars, trailing after them silken threads, bind the meal into 

 tangled masses, stop the machinery, and require the strongest 

 measures in order to destroy them. When the moth was first found 

 in German mills, the Continental naturalists suggested North America 

 as its original home, but the Transatlantic entomologists are not eager 

 to accept this honour for their country, and point out that the insect 

 did not trouble American millers until some years after it had appeared 

 in Germany and England. Curiously enough, the American states 

 most affected, New York and California, are the width of the 

 Continent apart. Before appearing in these, however, it established 

 itself in Canada. The colloquial name of the insect suggests the 

 Mediterranean shores as its home, and there seems reason to suspect 

 that it may have spread from South European ports. But like many 

 other " domestic animals " its origin remains a mystery, which 

 naturalists might like to see cleared up, though millers would probably 

 prefer that future research on the subject should cease from want of 

 material. 



Messrs. L. O. Howard and C. L. Marlatt have given in Bulletin 

 No. 3 (n.s.) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture a full account of 

 the San Jose Scale-insect (Aspidiotus perniciosiis, Comst.) First observed 

 in 1870 in California, whither it was believed to have been introduced 

 from Australia, this coccid has spread eastward to the x\tlantic states. 

 Its rapid rate of multiplication, and the difficulty of checking its 

 ravages, have made it one of the most dreaded enemies of the 

 American fruit-grower. In the Pacific region, the insect can be, to 

 some extent, destroyed by washes, but in the east it is often necessary 

 to burn infested trees to stop the plague from spreading. The Hfe- 

 history of the scale, its habits, and its natural insect-enemies (a 

 minute hymenopteron and a ladybird) are described in the thorough 

 manner which we expect from the Washington Division of 

 Entomology. 



Bulletin No. 2 of the same series is devoted to the Proceedings 

 of the seventh annual meeting of the Association of Economic 



