306 Journal op the Department of Agriculture. 



premises. The inside of the button is eaten out, till only a shell i& 

 left. Beetles, pupae, grubs, and eggs may be found together, and it 

 therefore seems as if breeding inside the button is continued as long 

 as there is any food left. As many as 30 beetles and 50 pupae and 

 larvae have been counted in one button. Merchants have to replace 

 the damaged buttons, and the expense in large establishments is very 

 considerable. What is apparently the same trouble has been dis- 

 covered by the Eastern Province Entomologist at Port Elizabeth ; 

 but it is said not to be serious there, and it is possible that the insect 

 is one which will be troublesome only in the warmer parts of the 

 country. 



it is possible to kill the insects in the buttons by treating them 

 with certain substances or by fumigation ; but this is hardly practic- 

 able with big stocks of clothing, and there is no assurance that 

 reinfestation will not take place. Preventive remedies will probably 

 prove more effective, and it is intended to carry out certain experi- 

 ments. Durban merchants are stipulating that no vegetable ivory 

 buttons are to be supplied with their orders, and this seems to be 

 the simplest safeguard against loss, unless the manufacturers of 

 vegetable ivory buttons could make them proof against attack, which 

 could probably be done by incorporating some poisonous substance 

 with the material with which the buttons are coated. 



February Insect Trouhles. — During the month of February 

 letters have been received and dealt with by the Pretoria office of 

 the Division of Entomology upon the following pests and matters 

 appertaining to insect control : — 



Orchard insects : Fruit-lly ; red scale ; mealy bug of figs, vines, 

 citrus ; Australian bug ; root knot of peach and fig. Field-crop 

 insects : E,oot knot of vegetables ; potato gallworm ; mystery worm ; 

 tobacco slug ; melon aphis ; cabbage aphis ; red spider ; melon fly ; 

 potato-plant bug. Garden insects : Red spider ; tip wilter bug. 

 Household insects : Ants ; fleas ; bed bugs ; cockroaches ; tampans. 

 White ants, destroying wood-work of houses, teff, forestral trans- 

 plants, etc. Cotton insects : BoUworm ; leaf-eating caterpillars ; 

 " jassid disease." Maize insects: AVeevils. Miscellaneous: Mill 

 insects ; cheese mites ; insect galls on grass ; Australian bug in wattle 

 plantations ; phoracantha borer of eucalyptus ; scab of springbok ; 

 hare ticks ; bagworms ; lawn caterpillars ; Indian cochineal ; 

 fumigation. 



VETERINARY EDUCATION AND RESEARCH. 



Scab in Sheep Kraals. — A very interesting and most important 

 series of experiments have just been concluded by Mr. H. H. Curson, 

 the veterinary research officer in charge of the laboratory at Grrahams- 

 town. It will be remembered that Shilston in Pietermaritzburg first 

 carried out experiments under strictly scientific conditions with a 

 view to establishing the longest period that a sheep kraal will remain 

 infected with scab. He found that if scabby sheep were taken out of 

 a kraal, and the kraal left empty for sixteen days, and if clean sheep 

 were then put back into the kraal, these sheep would remain free of 

 scab. In other words, the kraal is not able to retain the infection 

 for a period of sixteen days. The same results were obtained by 



