80 SQUASH-BUG FAMILY. 
of liquid food flows more and more slowly, when they are forced 
to leave, as has already been mentioned. Frequently eggs are 
found early in the spring upon all sorts of things stored away 
in our out-houses. This should not cause such a fear as was 
expressed in a letter, in which the writer asked whether the in- 
sects resulting from such eggs would injure his new self-binder, 
as that machine had been covered with eggs. Most of the young 
bugs hatching from eggs deposited in such situations will die 
before reaching a suitable tree. To kill these bugs is not an 
easy matter, as they cannot be poisoned like insects with a biting 
or a chewing mouth. To kill them at all would require a pow- 
erful spraying machine, by means of which the entire tree could 
be thoroughly sprayed. Such a machine is not found in the 
possession of people having only a dozen or so of shade-trees 
in front of their houses, nor could we expect this. But as the 
cities and villages are interested in good and healthy shade-trees 
in their streets and parks, the authorities should buy sufficient 
good spraying outfits, and should engage men to use them fre- 
quently and intelligently, not alone against the box elder bug, 
however, but against all insects infesting our shade trees. Dur- 
ing the warmer parts of the season most of the shade-trees are 
in a decidedly bad condition, owing to all sorts of insects, but 
chiefly to leaf-lice of various kinds. A forcible spraying, even 
with pure water alone, would be a wonderful blessing to such 
dusty and bug-infested trees, while repeated spraying with kero- 
sene-emulsion would soon transform the neglected and unsightly 
trees into things of joy and beauty. Under the head of leaf- 
lice and elsewhere formulas are given for kerosene-emulsion. 
Farmers possessing wind-breaks should all possess spraying ma- 
chines. 
The box elder bugs have one peculiar habit that we can 
utilize to keep them from becoming too numerous. They crowd 
together during the autumn, and are very slow and apparently 
stupid during the colder parts of the day. As they gather to- 
gether in large numbers, such meetings could be enlivened by 
the owners of the trees injured by these insects by pouring some 
boiling hot water over their enemies. This would dispose of 
‘many. Other meetings could be broken up by sweeping the bugs 
into tin pans or directly into the fire. The free use of kerosene- 
