129 



Waterston (J.). Notes on African Chalcidoidea. iy.—BuU. Entom. 

 Research, London, vi, no. 4, February 191G, pp. 413-423, 6 figs. 



The following species of Chalcidoidea are described : —Timioderus 

 refnngens, gen. et sp. n., from Nyasaland ; SpilochaJcis andersom, 

 sp. n., from British East Africa ; Hockeria munda, sp. n., and 

 Ooencyrius lamborni, sp. n., from Nyasaland. The last-named was 

 bred from the eggs of a Pierine butterfly, Belenois severina, Cram. 



Shot-hole Borer of Tea. — Trop. Agric, Perodenii/a, xlvi, no. 1, 

 January 1916, pp. 41-45. 

 In a discussion at a meeting of the Committee of Agricultural 

 Experiments, Peiadeniya, on the 11th November 1915, Mr. Speyer 

 gave the results of some experiments to illustrate the relation of the 

 attack of the shot-hole borer beetle {Xyleborus fornicatus) to the 

 general conditions under which tea is cultivated in Ceylon [see this 

 Review, >Ser. A, iii, p. 666]. The first two experiments showed that 

 the beetles, either by instinct or the process of trial, attack trees 

 which have previoiisly been the subject of attack, and that a number 

 of trees are never visited by them. The results lead to the belief 

 that the tea bushes gradually attain a state in which they invite attack 

 the longer they run from the last pruning and that some bushes hold 

 out against the beetle longer than others ; a considerable number do 

 so for the whole period between two prunings, i.e., two years on good 

 soil, and a smaller number on poor soil. In a third experiment the 

 preponderance of trees left unattacked over those revisited was 

 remarkable and this was inerely due to pruning. At the beginning 

 of the experiment the effect of previous pruning on the trees first 

 found attacked had not made itself apparent. These trees began to 

 give the best evidence of their immunity towards the middle of the 

 experiment, when the shoots were putting out an abundance of leaves, 

 and at the end of the experiment, which had lasted 3^ months, 100 per 

 cent, of the primed trees had become inmmne, even though the galleries 

 of the beetle had not been removed from them, save in the branches 

 pruned. An examination of the 257 trees of the first experiment, 

 made on 24th October — four months after natural pruning — showed 

 that not a single beetle was present in any of the bushes, and some 

 evidence was forthcoming that the beetles are actually forced to leave 

 their galleries in the lower parts of the bushes after pruning. In 

 those branches which put out no shoots after pruning, this is not 

 the case, and it is therefore highly advisable to remove these branches 

 within four months of pruning. It is stated in conclusion that tea 

 grown under exceptionally poor conditions does not seem to establish 

 immunity to the extent which is noticeable in healthv, well-manured 

 fields. 



Craighead (F. C). Insects in their Relation to the Chestnut Bark 

 Disease. — Science, Lancaster, Pa., xliii, no. 1100, 28th January 

 1916, pp. 133-135. 



According to recent investigations by vStudhalter and Ruggles, 

 the Longicorn beetle, Leptostyhis macuJa, is the most important carrier 

 of the spores of chestnut blight. The author criticises this statement 



