48 



and upon the willf>w. We figure the adult insect (Fig. 17) in order to 

 enable its ready recognition should this destructive habit recur. 



THE BLACK AUSTRALIAN LADYBIRD IN CALIFORNIA. 



Complaints are being made in California, as we notice from the Eural 

 Californian for IMay, that the black ladybird, RhizoMus ventralis, which 

 was one of the late importations from Australia, from .vhich great results 

 were expected in the destruction of noxious orchard scale-insects, has 

 not been doing its duty in the orchards in which colonies were i)laced. 

 The phraseology of the notice is as follows : " The opinion was expressed 

 at the meeting of the Pomological Society at Pasadena that the black 

 ladybird was not showing up in the orchards in which colonies had been 

 placed." From this it might be supposed that they had not been seen 

 this spring in the orchards in (piestion. 



ThePacific Eural Press of July 21, 1894, however, quotes a statement 

 made by Mr. T. N. Snow in the Santa Barbara Press as to the progress 

 of this ladybird in the orchard of Mr. Ellwood Cooper, at Ellwood, Cal. 

 According to this account a little more than two years ago 50 specimens 

 of Rhizobius ventralis were placed in this orchard, where they multiplied 

 so rajiidly that in October, 1893, Quarantine Officer Alexander Craw 

 was able to secure there over 500 colonies, numbering more than 

 10,000, for colonization in various parts of the State. On June 27, 

 1894, Mr. Craw, it is reported, again visited this orchard, and found not 

 one black scale left of the army which had been there, the Rbizobius 

 having made a perfect clearance. Mr. Craw is reported to have 

 expressed to Mr. Snow his belief that by next November there would 

 not be a black scale remaining in Ellwood. 



THE GRAPE-VINE ROOT-WORM. 



In Newspaper Bulletin No. 140 of the Ohio Experiment Station Mr. 

 F. M. Webster calls attention to the injury done to the roots of grape- 

 vines about Cleveland by the larvse of the grape-vine root worm [Fidia 

 viticida). The larva of this insect, the adult of which has for many 

 years been known as a leaf feeder upon the grape, has never been known 

 with certainty. It has been suspected that it feeds upon the roots, 

 but Mr. Webster is the first to prove this point and to rear the adult 

 from the larva. The experiments which he has made show that the 

 larvae are readily killed by a very small amount of bisulphide of car- 

 bon, while the beetles may be readily destroyed with the arsenites. 



AN INVASION OF THE "FEATHERED GOTHIC" MOTH IN NORTHERN 



FRANCE. 



Ur. P. Marchal has an interesting note on the " feathered Gothic" 

 moth {Heliopliohxis jyopular'is) in the Bulletin of the Entomological Soci- 

 ety of France, which he read at the meeting of June 13, 1894. Under 

 a commission from the Ministrv of Agriculture he visited the infested 



