CURRENT NOTES. 261 



soino eaitli liad l»oon placed, and were covered over with moss. 

 The first imago a2)peared on June 5th, five more (crippled) on June 

 lOtli, and the rest (in perfect condition) on June 11th and 12th. In 

 Box No. 1 the imagines were later in emerging, the first not making 

 its appearance till July 2nd, and the emergence continuing till July 

 I4th. The sand in this box had not been wetted to the same extent 

 as that in Xo. 2. The imago has a good deal of likeness to ripae, lib. 

 and desert icola, H-S., but varies very much, from a clear white 

 gi'ound-colour, with hardly perceptible markings, to darker with 

 very distinct markings ; it is also larger than the above-mentioned 

 insects. 



In the course of a very philosophical paper on " The Senses of Insects " 

 (Insect Life, vol. vii., No. 1), Prof. 0. V. liiley mentions an experiment 

 that he made, with a view of ascertaining how far off, in the case of 

 " sembling " moths, the 5 could be detected by the 3^ • He says : — 

 " In 1863 I obtained from the then Commissioner of Agriculture, 

 Col. Capron, eggs of Samia ci/nthia, the Ailanthus silk-worm of Japan, 

 which had recently been introduced by him. I was living on East 

 Madison Street, in Chicago, at the time, a part of the city subsequently 

 swept b}^ the great fire and since entirely transformed. In the front yard, 

 whicli (so commonly the case in the old Chicago days) was below the 

 side- walk, there grew two Ailanthus trees which were the cause of my 

 sending for the aforesaid eggs. I had every reason to believe that there 

 were no other eggs of this species received in any part of the country 

 within hundreds of miles around. It seemed a good opportunity 

 to test the power of this sembling, and after rearing a number 

 of larvfe I carefully watched for the appearance of the first moths 

 from the cocoons. I kept the first moths separate and confined 

 a virgin female in an improvised wicker cage out of doors on one of 

 tlie Ailanthus trees. On the same evening I took a male to the old 

 Catholic cemetery on tlie north side and let him loose, having 

 previously tied a silk thread around the base of the abdomen to insure 

 identification. The distance between the captive female and the 

 released male was at least a mile and a half, and yet the next morning 

 these tAvo individuals were together." 



The entomopliytous fungus, Botrytis bassiana, whicli is the cause 

 of that fell disease among silk- worms, known as Muscardine, has been 

 turned to economic account by Dr. F. Ilein. lie tells us ( Ball. Soc. 

 Ent. France, vol. Ixii., p. cviii) that his advice was sought about the 

 devastation of some forest trees in a rural part of France. He found 

 that the ravages were due to the larvse of Cossns Hijniperda. In one 

 tree he found the larvfv all dead in their Ihutows, the bodies being 

 mummified and covei'ed over with a whitish efflorescence. This was at 

 once recognized as due to the fructification of an entomopliytous fungus, 

 which was later on determined to l)e the species inentioned al)ove. 

 He determined to see whether the disease could be induced in the 

 living larva?, Avhicli, he says, can be reared easily enough on hard 

 green apples. The apples and the larvae were dusted over with tlie 

 white powder formed on the surface of the dead larva? by the fructification 

 of the fungus. Of several hundred larvje of various ages ex}ierimented 

 on, every one was infected within five or six days, and all died. The 

 next step was to try whether the same result could be obtained in the 

 haunts of the insect. A mixture of the spores- and some talc 



