Notes from the Divisions: Entomology. 171 



similar pest, but the particular l)utterfly (Belcifjis mesenfina) is not 

 one known to trouble cultivated i)lants. The otficers of the division 

 are ignorant as to where the hordes came from, and even as to the 

 usual food plants of the species; but the butterfly has been reared at 

 Pretoria from a common veld bush (Rhus sp. probably i-iviinalis), 

 and it is suspected that it is the larvae of this species that sometimes 

 defoliates the witstam tree (C(ippari.'< albitrunca). Swarms of the 

 same butterfly have beeii reported in other years, not only in Natal 

 and the Transvaal, but in the Orang-e Free State and eastern districts 

 of the Cape Province. While the insects seen at one time all proceed 

 in one direction, the direction of movement is variable. At Pretoria 

 the movement was oeuerally nf)rtherly, but on one morjiing- one of the 

 officers of the Division observed that it was then easterlj'. Two 

 correspondents wrote that it was to the north-west, two others that it 

 was north-east, and others tliat it was east; several stated that it was 

 ao-ainst the wind. 



rcniicioiis Scale in f/ir Orunfje Free Stntc. — J.-'enicious (San Jose) 

 scale was first recoo-nized in South Africa during 1911, when it was 

 discovered at a number of centres in the Transvaal and Xatal. As 

 the years have o-one by it has become more and more a pest in the 

 localities where it is under observation, but it is still more a g'arden 

 than an orchard pest. The town of Pretoria is fast becomino- 

 generally infested, and each year for several years the plant nurseries 

 in and near the town have been found to have become invaded ; much 

 of the time of one plant inspector is taken Uji with precautions 

 exercised against the spread of the pest with plants sent away from 

 the town. No occurrence of the iiisect is known or suspected any- 

 where in the Cape Province, and until recently the only occurrences 

 known in the Orange Free State were at Kroonstad and at Viljoens 

 Drift, the latter a small place across the river from Yereeniging, in 

 the Transvaal. It now appears that the insect occurs in the Free 

 State, near the Natal border. Writing in -January from Thoreng. 

 P.O. Harrismith. a correspondent sent specimens to the Division of 

 Entomology with tlie information: — "I am sending you a i)iece of 

 plum branch infested with a blue-grey scale which is fast killing 

 apples too. This Innrible pest crams the branches and sucks the sap; 

 in a few weeks the tree is dead." The insect, in reality, is generally 

 present two or more seasons before a ti'ee is likely to succumb to its 

 attack, but it commonly baijjx'ns that it is not cbsei'ved until trees 

 are damaged bevond recoverv. 



Telegraphic Requests for Vaccines, etc. 



Urgent telegrams for vaccines, etc., are frequently addressed to 

 tlie head office of the Department in the Union Buildings. Pretoria, 

 and have to be sent on to the Laboratory at Onderstepoort, thus causing 

 delay. All applications of this nature should be made direct to the 

 Director of Veterinary Research, Oiiderstepoori. whose telegrajjliic 

 address is " Microbe," Pretoria. 



