18 



dip, without being previously clipped, with very satisfactory results, 

 as within twenty-four hours of the second spraying they were found to 

 be quite free from lice. 



Cattle badly infested with ticks were rubbed with Cooper's tick 

 grease, the dead ticks being removed next day by rubbing with a wad 

 of dry grass. During the rainy season the best results are obtained by 

 spraying the animal first, keeping it under cover until dry, and then 

 rubbing the most infested part with cattle grease, before turning it 

 out to pasture. 



LiSTON (Major W. G.). Report of the Bombay Bacteriological Labora- 

 tory for the Years 1915 and 1916, Bombay, 1917, 9 pp. [Received 

 23rd November 1917.] 



Research work in connection with plague has been restricted to the 

 practical application of hydrocyanic acid gas for the destruction of rats 

 and fleas in houses. Several different types of machine for generating 

 and distributing the gas were designed and constructed and practically 

 tested in houses, showing that with suitable precautions the gas can be 

 used with safety and some success. Rats placed in barrels or deep 

 boxes, or near the tiles of the roof, escaped, because in the first case the 

 gas, being lighter than air, failed to diffuse downwards in the barrel, 

 and in the latter, because fresh air entering through the tiles diluted 

 the gas so as to render it innocuous. The action of the gas on insects 

 was much more marked than on mammals, bugs, fleas, cockroaches and 

 mosquitos being readily killed, though certain grain weevils proved 

 more resistant. A simple form of apparatus has been designed for use 

 in hospitals for the destruction of bugs in beds, bedding and clothing. 



Bodkin (G. E.). Cowfly Tigers. An Account of the Hymenopterous 

 Family Bembecidae in British Guiana. — Jl. Bd. Agric. British 

 Guiana, Demerara, x, nos 3 & 4, April & July 1917, pp. 119-125. 

 [Received 20th November 1917.] 



In this account of the various species of Bembicid wasps that occur 

 in British Guiana, it is stated that in one burrow of Motiedula 

 denticornis the remains of the following flies that had been carried in 

 by the female as food for the larvae, were fomid : the Muscid, 

 Stomoxys calcitrans, L. ; a Stratiomyid, Hermetia illucens, L. ; a 

 Syrphid, Eristalis obsoletus, Wied. ; and a Tabanid, Tabanus triliyieaius. 

 The larvae are voracious feeders, one kept under observation being 

 noticed in the course of one day and night to devour six individuals of 

 Stomoxys, one Tabanus trilineatus and one T. semisordidus. 



NuTTALL (G. H. F.). Bibliography of Pediculus. Including zoological 

 and medical Publications dealing with human Lice, their 

 Anatomy, Biology, Relation to Disease, etc., and Prophylactic 

 Measures directed against them. — Parasitology, Cambridge, x, 

 no. 1, 29th November 1917, pp. 1-42. 



The lack of knowledge of the literature on hce shown by most recent 

 writers has, in some instances, led to remarkable blunders, which would 

 have been avoided if the authors had been familiar with the work 

 accompUshed by their predecessors. 



