i)8 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF OXTAlirO. 



Farm aud Fruit Insecis of South Africa, with Descriptions and Identifications of the 

 Insects by Oh'ver E. Jansen, Prior to the publication of this work Miss Onnerod pub- 

 lished a leaflet' entitled Observations on the Australian Bug, treating the insect from the 

 South African standpoint. For several years^ from 1889 to 1893, Mr. Louis Peringuey, 

 an officer of the South African Museum at (Jape Town, was employed as entomological 

 adviser to the Department of Agriculture, and drew £100 par annum for his services. 

 His duties in the Museum, however, did not permit him to devote anything like his entire 

 lime to entomological work, and in his advisory functions he chiefly answered questions 

 as to the names of insects and the best remedies for insect pests. Acting upon hii advice, 

 the government attempted to stamp out the phylloxera bv means of the bisulphide of 

 carbon treatment, but without success, and he resigned his office ,in 1893. Since that 

 time, and in fact for some tims previously, tha director of the Botanic Garden at Cape 

 Town, Prof. P. MacOwan, a man of very wide information, although not a trained 

 entomologist, has answered entomological questions for tlie government. His communi- 

 cations, most of them subsequently published in the AyriciiUaral Journal, show him to 

 be a clear-headed, practical man, and it is a pity for the interests of the colony that 

 he is too much interested in his garden and botanical work to take up economic 

 f-ntomology as a study. Mr. MacOwan modestly writes, under date of April 11, 1894 : 



Uu fortunately, 1 have b'-en in the habit of reading everything that comes in the w;'„y aud indexing it, 

 .«o that really they consult my indexes. It is only thus, in tlie rough, practical way that a garden director, 

 in a dozen years, gets some actiuaintanee with injurious and beneficial insects that I have .answered ques- 

 tions of economic entomology. I only know what I have seen and fought againsi: iu the B )tanic Garden, 

 and anybody is welcome to such expei-ience. ... 1 only wish we cjuld get some such man as seems to 

 be raised easily in the States to do practical science work in the love of it. 



Au^TKALlA. 



'V-'j-'iThe Australian colonies of Victorii, New .South Wales, Queensland, South Aus- 

 tralia and Tasmania have all interested themselves to a very considerable extent in 

 the subject of economic entonaoiogy. With an energy and receptivity to new ideas 

 akin to our own, their agricultural societies and departments of agriculture liave not 

 been content to allow injurious insects full sv/ay, but all have, in one form or another, 

 made efTorts to remedy the damage. 



Tasmania. The earliest attempts vvere made in Tasmania nearly twenty years ago, 

 when the Codling-Moth Act was introduced in the legislative assembly. The provi- 

 sions of this Act were quite as wisely drawn as those of any subsequent injurious-insect 

 legislation. It was not until 1891, however, that a definite council of agriculture was 

 established by this colony, and not until 1892 that an official entomologist wa^^ appointed. 

 In February, 1892, Rev. Edward H Thompson, a clergyman of the Church of England 

 and a naturalist of very cousiderable attainments, who had made himself prominent in 

 this connection by his writings for the local press, was appointed entomologist and 

 pathologist to the Council of Agriculture. Authority for the appointment was given 

 in section 13, clause 1, of the Council of Agriculture Act, and reads as iollows : 



3. To employ from time to time, with the approval of the governor in council, persons competent to 

 give instructions of a practical chara'jter in matters pertaining to agricultural avid horticultural science, and 

 to arrange for occasional lectures on subjects of interest to cultivators of the soil. 



i.wjjvjj. Thompson's annual compensation was fixed at £300, which in 1894 was 

 reduced to £270, in pursuance of a policy of general retrenchment. The entomologist 

 has charge of no funds for expenses, and up to the present time has been allowed no 

 assistants. Very considerable interest has been aroused, however, in the subject of 

 economic entomology. Mr. Thompson has lectured upon insect pests through ou.t the 

 colony, and during 1893 received nearly 1,;")0() letters of inquiry. A little volume of 

 100 pages, entitled Handbook to the Insect Pests of the Farm and Orchard ; their Life 

 History and Methods of Prevention, Part I., has been published, and will he followed 

 by others in the same line, provided the appropriations continue. 



New^South Wales In New Soath Wales there was started in 1890 an important 

 publication under the Bureau of Mines and Agriculture, entitled The Agricultural GazoAte 

 of New South Wales. To this periolical Mr. A. Si Iney OllifF, entomologist to the 



