Ixiv 



to plants used as food. £6 for a collection of British beetles injui'ious to 

 timber and fruit trees, either growing or felled. £^ for a collection of 

 British insects injurious to some one timber or fruit tree. The insects to 

 be exhibited in their various stages of development, accompanied by speci- 

 mens, models, or drawings of the injuries caused by them. The collections 

 to be sent in to Mr. Kichards, Assistant Secretary, Royal Horticultural 

 Society, South Kensington, S.W., on or before 1st November, 1873." 



It is especially worthy of record that the large collections of 

 Economic Entomology formed in France by M. Guerin-Meneville, 

 have during the past year been presented by him to the great 

 Natural History Museum of Paris. 



The ravages of Phylloxera vastatrix are unfortunately widely 

 extending in Europe, and have reached Portugal, where they 

 threaten seriously to affect our wine supply. The attention of 

 the Government has been called to the question, and an official 

 document has been published on the subject, which well illustrates 

 the ordinary modus operandi of our authorities in such matters, 

 contrasting most unfavourably with the proceedings of the French 

 and American Governments. Instead of calling to their aid the 

 services of a committee of skilled naturalists, or even those of a 

 single entomologist, as is now done by several of the American 

 States, we have here no less than seventeen documents from 

 Consuls, &c., which tell us nothing new on the subject, with the 

 exception of the Keport addressed to the French Minister of 

 Agriculture and Commerce by a Scientific Commission appointed 

 by the Government of France to study this new disease, and 

 which bears the signatures of Messrs. Dumas, Diichartre, Milne- 

 Edwards, Paul Gervais and four others. Here the whole question 

 of the economy of the insect has been investigated, and illustrated 

 by a series of highly magnified figures.* 



The great interest which has been raised by the ravages of this 

 small but terrible insect upon the vines, both in America and 

 Europe, may be conceived when it is stated that in an extended 

 bibliographical memoir for which we are indebted to Messrs. 

 Planchon and Lichtenstein (Montpellier, 1872), notices are given 



* A translation of this Report, with copies of the figures, has appeared in the 

 'Journal of Horticulture,' in which work is a series of well-written articles on 

 Garden Insects, by an anonymous writer, the last of which, No. 30, appeared in the 

 last part. 



