— '53— 



A paper upon Cut Worms, read before the New York State Agri- 

 cultural Society (pp. 25, figs. 20), and one entitled Some Injurious In- 

 sects of Massachusetts, read before the Massachusetts State Board of Agri- 

 culture, by the State Entomologist of New York, have been published in 

 the Annual Reports of the Societies named, and also as separates. 



The Fourth Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, narrates (pp. 216 — 223) experiments made at the Station with 

 insecticides upon some of our more injurious insect pests; and contains 

 also, a notice of a very interesting fungus attack upon Phytonomus 

 punctiius (pp. 258 — 262), inasmuch as it is believed to have been com- 

 municated through the agency of a fertilizer employed. The fungus is 

 named by Prof. Arthur, Botanist of the Station, Entomophthora Phy- 

 tonomi. 



The Fourth Report of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 for 1885, devotes 6 pages to experiments with insecticides, and the best 

 method for their application. 



An Experiment in Silk Culture, by Prof. T. J, Burrill, made under 

 direction of the Illinois University, is published in the Proceedings of the 

 6th Meeting of the Society for the promotion of Agricultural Science. 

 The experiment terminated in the study of a contagious disease that 

 broke out in the larvae that were being reared, which was believed to be' 

 identical with the flacheric of the silk worm in France, observed by 

 Pasteur^ The disease had never been previously recorded as existing in 

 this country, but is now thought to have long prevailed among our nat- 

 ive Lepidoptera, and to have been the cause of a recent epidemic in the 

 Picris rapcE larvae. The causes that may have led to the outbreak of 

 disease among the silk-worms attempted to be reared, are considered in 

 the paper. 



In the same publication, is an abstract of a paper by Prof C. V. 

 Riley, on Grasshopper Injury. A periodicity in wide-spread locust in- 

 juries averaging about every eleven years is accepted. It is claimed to be 

 possible to predict the degree of destructiveness. Thus, increasing in- 

 jury for the years 1886 and 1887 may be expected should the weather 

 favor; but even under the most favoring conditions, these injuries can 

 never again be so wide spread, it is asserted, as between 1^74 and 1877. 



Prof. S. A, Forbes, who has for some time, been paying special 

 attention the diseases of insects with a view of their propogation for the 

 destruction of injurious species, has published in a Bulletin of the Illinois 

 State Laboratory of Natural History (vol. ii, pp. 257 — 321) an elaborate 

 paper entitled Studies on the Contagious Diseases of bisects. In it he dis- 



