454 



also swept from tbe same plats. Calandra oryzce also appeared in these 

 sweepings, showing that this pest, so abundant and destructive to 

 stored grain all over the South, is to be found abroad in the fields very 

 early in the season. A field of turnips (ruta-bagas) which had been left 

 out over winter were thickly populated with ApMs brassicce, indicating 

 something as to what the cabbage crop has to overcome in that sec- 

 tion. During my short stay at College Station I reared two para- 

 sites from this Aphis, viz, Allotria brassicce, and Diaeretus n. sp., both 

 in great abundance. A few days later, in Burnet County, the Eed- 

 shouldered Sinoxylon, Sinoxylon basilare, was observed in great abun- 

 dance burrowing into Mesquite, and therefore may be looked upon as 

 one of the future orchard pests of the State. 



Among the insects swept from growing wheat at College Station, 

 there appeared, singularly enough, a single female Buffalo Gnat. 

 While this individual might have originated in either Navasota Eiver, 

 to the east, or in the Brazos, to the west, it seemed that, as the latter 

 stream was the nearest, there was a greater probability of finding the 

 earlier stages there. A day was spent in examination of this stream, 

 about 7 miles from where the adult was taken, and, as a result, the 

 driftwood and brush in the swifter flowing portions of the stream were 

 found to harbor numbers of larvte, with, at this time, a few i)upge. 

 These larvse closely resembled those found in streams in the neighbor- 

 hood of the Mississippi River, but I could not learn from people resid- 

 ing in the vicinity that any serious effect on stock had been noticed. 



A later and extended examination of the river Pedernalis, in Blanco 

 County, and other tributaries of the Colorado River in Llano and 

 Burnet Counties, as well as the Colorado itself, revealed the fact that all 

 of these streams were populated with great numbers of Simulium larvae, 

 very much resembling those observed in the Ozark Mountains of Ar- 

 kansas. Here, as in Arkansas, the pupa3 were in the minority, though 

 much more numerous than farther north. 



In Devil's River, a small tributary of the Rio Grande in southwest- 

 ern Texas, what seemed very similar larvse were found in great abun- 

 dance. There will most likelj^ be two species found here, neither of 

 which is like those described from the Mississippi Valley. The Pecos 

 River, in the western part of the State, I did not examine, but from 

 what could be learned of its nature from ranchmen and others, it will 

 most likely prove to be equally well stocked. Along Devil's lUver, on 

 March 22, adult Simulia were abroad in considerable numbers, some 

 of them being infested by a small, red, water mite, apparently belong- 

 ing to the genus Biplodontus. 



" The eternal fitness of things" is most aptly illustrated in these rocky 

 streams of western Texas. If the Mississippi River were to empty its 

 overflow into the ujjper portions of these streams for a few years, dur- 

 ing early spring, we should most assuredly see all stock driven out of 

 the country by Buffalo Gnats. Even if the volume of water were con- 



