82 



record in the literature of economic entomology. Some five or six years 

 ago the mulberry trees over a large portion of Italy were attacked by 

 a very destructive scale insect, known as Biaspis pentagona, a species 

 which also attacked a number of other cultivated trees, and which 

 instigated very largely the experimental work which we have just men- 

 tioned. The investigation resulted in the adoption of three prime 

 insecticides, one composed of kerosene emulsion, another of an emul- 

 sion of bisulphide of carbon, and the third of an emulsion of crude tar 

 oil. These mixtures, used in varying proportions, proved the most 

 effective of the many scores of substances or combinations of substances 

 tried. It is interesting to note that this great amount of admirable work 

 has been accomplished on an annual appropriation of 11,000 lire. 



Aside from the work of the station at Florence, the Ministry of Agri- 

 culture at Rome published, in 1887, an extremely important and use- 

 ful work, which bears largely ui)on economic entomology, and which is 

 entitled Botanical Studies upon Citrus and Allied Plants, by Dr. O. 

 Penzig, of Genoa. The subtitle of the work is " Memoria premiata dal 

 E. Ministero d'agricoltura" which, if I take it aright, means that it 

 was prepared privately by the author, received a money award at the 

 hands of the ministry, and was published as a special volume of the 

 annals. The entomological portion of this important work is in part 

 compiled, but it has been done in the most careful and thorough man- 

 ner. The author has been familiar with the work of entomologists in 

 all parts of the world, and has brought together a great mass of prac- 

 tical information. The large atlas which accompanies the work con- 

 tains 20 quarto plates of a very considerable degree of excellence. 



FRANCE. 



The French jjeople have done much to advance the science of ento- 

 mology; they have even done a great deal in economic entomology. 

 The agricultural conditions prevailing in France are similar to those 

 which hold in Germany, and what we have said about the latter coun- 

 try will largely apply to France. The abundance of popular works 

 upon economic entomology is the same. Beginning with Fonscolombe's 

 Memoires sur les Insectes Nuisibles a I'Agriculture, principalement 

 dans le Departemeut du Midi de France, published in 1840, a number of 

 these works have been published, the most prominent of which was, 

 perhaps, that of M. Charles Goureau, under the title Insectes ISTuisibles, 

 published in 18G2, and of which two supplements were afterwards 

 issued. Moreover, in 1867 a journal was established by Dr. Boisduval, 

 entitled Insectologie Agricole, treating of useful insects and their prod- 

 ucts, noxious insects and their injuries, and the principal means of 

 fighting them, of which six volumes appeared, comprising the years 

 1867 to 1872. For a number of years instruction in economic ento- 

 mology has been given at the ficole Rationale d'Agriculture at Mont- 

 pellier, largely by the able zoologist, M, Valery Mayet, who has recently 



