Vol. Ill, Wfo. 2.] INSECT LIFE. [Issued Sept., 1§90. 



SPECIAL NOTES. 



Insects injuring Cotton in Egypt.— (Jue of the last official acts performed 

 by the late Hou. Eugene Schuyler, United States agent and consul- 

 general at Cairo, before his recent untimely and lamented death, was 

 tosendusacopy of Albert Ismalun's brochure upon the cotton insects of 

 Egypt and (through the State Department and the honorable Secretary 

 of Agriculture) a dispatch containing a translation of a recently pub- 

 lished article on the same subject by Dr. E. Sickenberger of the Cairo 

 Medical School. We print this dispatch in the "extracts from corre- 

 spondence" of this number as a matter of entomological interest, al- 

 though there is little danger, as Mr. Schuyler feared, of the importation 

 of any of these pests into this country, and certainly none that " the 

 cotton exported from Egypt to the United States might contain the 

 eggs." Of the three species treated, the Prodenia seems to be isotypical 

 with the Laphygma frugiperda of our Southern cotton fields, and the 

 Oxycarenus with our Dysdercus suturellus. 



A Japanese Parasite of the Gipsy Moth.— Rev. H. Loomis, of Yokohama, 

 has just written us the following interesting letter: 



I have seen the reports of the ravages of the Ocneria dispar at Medford, in Massa- 

 chusetts, and have taken considerable interest in the matter. 



Some time last season the same caterpillar appeared on a wistaria vine near my 

 house and was very destructive, but after a while the caterpillars began to die and I 

 discovered that an ichneumon Hy had attacked them with great success. 



This spring the caterpillars have been very few, and in nearly every case have been 

 destroyed by the ichneumon flies. 



I will send you a box in which are some of the cocoons of the ichneumon fly, and 

 also two specimens of their work. Perhaps this may be of some value to those who 

 are interested in the exteruiiuation of the pest. 



This matter is one of great interest for the reason that no parasites 

 haV'C as yet been found to attack the Gypsy Moth in this country. We 

 stated in our article on page 210 of Vol. II that we thought it very 



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