93 



Miss Orinerod published a leaflet entitled Observations on the Austra- 

 lian Bug-, treating- the insect from the South African standpoint. For 

 several years, from 18S9 to 1893, Mr. Louis Peringuey, an officer of the 

 South African Museum at Cape Town, was employed as entonm 

 logical adviser to the Department of Agriculture, and drew £100 per 

 annum for his services. His duties in the Museum, however, did not 

 permit him to devote anything like his entire time to entomological 

 work, and in his advisory functions he chiefly answered questions as to 

 the names of insects and the best remedies for insect pests. Acting 

 upon his advice, the government attempted to stamp out the Phyl- 

 loxera by means of the bisulphide of carbon treatment, but without 

 success, and he resigned his office in 1893. Since that time, and in fact 

 for some time previously, the director of the Botanic Garden at Cape 

 Town, Prof. P. MacOwan, a man of very wide information, although 

 not a trained entomologist, has answered entomological questions for 

 the government. His communications, most of them subsequently 

 published in the Agricultural Journal, show him to be a clear-headed, 

 practical man, and it is a pity for the interests of the colony that he is 

 too much interested in his garden and botanical work to take up 

 economic entomology as a study. Mr. MacOwan modestly writes, 

 under date of April 11, 1894: 



Unlbrtuii'itely, I have been in the habit of reading everything that comes in the 

 way and indexing it, so that really they consult my indexes. It is only thus, in the 

 rough, practical way that a garden director, in a dozen years, gets some aciiuaint- 

 ance with injurious and beneficial insects, that I have answered questions of economic 

 entomology. I only know what I have seen and fought against in the Botanic 

 Garden, and anybody is welcome to such experience. * * * I only wish we 

 could get some such man as seems to be raised easily in the States to do practical 

 science work in the love of it. 



AUSTRALIA. 



The Australian colonies of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, 

 South Australia, and Tasmania have all interested themselves to a 

 very considerable exte.it in the subject of economic entomology. With 

 an energy and receptivity to new ideas akin to our own, their agricul 

 tural societies and departments of agriculture have not been content to 

 allow injurious insects full sway, but all have, in one form or another, 

 made efforts to remedy the damage. 



Tasmania. — The earliest attempts were made in Tasmania nearly 

 twenty years ago, when the codling-moth act was introduced in the 

 legislative assembly. The provisions of this act were quite as wisely 

 drawn as those of any subsequent injurious-insect legislation. It was 

 not until 1891, however, that a detinite council of agriculture was estab- 

 lished by this colony, and not until 1892 that an official entomologist 

 was appointed. In February, 1892, Rev. Edward H. Thompson, a 

 clergyman of the Church of England and a nataralist of very consid- 

 erable attainments, who had made himself prominent in this connection 



