338 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 12 



bait for grasshoppers is found in Bulletin 25 of the Division of Ento- 

 mology pubhshed in 1891.^ In this bulletin C. V. Riley quotes a letter 

 from D. W. Coquillet concerning experiments with bran-arsenate 

 mash in the San Joaquin Valley, California, in 1885. The formula 

 which was used in California consisted of bran, arsenic, sugar and 

 water. Coquillet emphatically stated that the use of sugar in the 

 poisoned mash was not for the purpose of increasing the attractive- 

 ness to the grasshoppers but merely for the purpose of causing the 

 arsenic to adhere to the flakes of bran. 



The use of a poisoned bran bait against cutworms was apparently 

 not discovered until 1894. The first published reference to such a 

 bait for cutworms seems to be found in a paper by J. B. Smith read 

 before the American Association of Economic Entomologists in 

 August, 1894.2 The combination used consisted of bran, Paris green 

 and water which is said to have given absolute protection to sweet 

 potato plants which were being severely attacked by cutworms. The 

 first use of this habit is credited to a sweet potato grower named 

 Oliver Parry, of Beverley, New Jersey. The addition of molasses or 

 sugar to the plain poisoned bran mixture was recommended sub- 

 sequently by J. B. Smith, the object being indicated as not for the 

 purpose of increasing the attractiveness of the bait but for the purpose 

 of making the particles of bran adhere together and better retain 

 moisture.^ 



No doubt molasses was substituted for sugar to suit the convenience 

 of the users of poisoned baits against grasshoppers in California during 

 the late eighties, but the first published reference to such substitution 

 appears to be one found in Insect Life.'* Mr. H. B. Jackson, a cor- 

 respondent of the Division of Entomology, living in Colorado, writing 

 under date of August 15, 1892, referred to the successful use in Colorado 

 against grasshoppers of a bait consisting of 100 parts of bran, 3 parts 

 of Paris green "and some old molasses or other cheap sweet substance 

 to make it stick together." In the same issue of Insect Life, Prof. 

 Lawrence Bruner mentions bran and arsenic used in Colorado as a 

 poisoned bait against grasshoppers, the absence of any mention of 

 other ingredients indicating that the use of either sugar or molasses 

 was not generally recognized as necessary. 



In 1896 an important discovery was made by onion growers in New 

 York state as reported by F. A. Sirrine in a bulletin of the New York 



1 Pp. 59-60. 



2 Insect Life, Vol. 7, No. 2, p. 191. 



3 Catalog Insects of New Jersey, p. 21, 1900. Bui. N. J. 169, Agr. Exp. Sta., pp. 

 11-12, 1903. 



* Vol. 6, pp. 32-33. 



