218 



parts of the country have been brought together by Mr. Marlatt, who 

 has also added his own personal experience in an article which is pub- 

 lished in this number. 



The Chinch Bug in 1894.— We publish in this number the conclusions 

 reached by Prof. Herbert Osborn on this subject, after a trip through 

 Iowa during the month of July, undertaken at our instance. Prof. 

 Forbes early in the season foresaw the possibility of very consider- 

 able damage by chinch bugs this year, and wrote to this office suggest- 

 ing cooperative study throughout the threatened states, for the pur- 

 pose of making a broad investigation of conditions and surround- 

 ings — a broader one, in fact, than has heretofore been made or could 

 well be undertaken by any one state officer. Prof. Forbes engaged to do 

 the work for Illinois; Chancellor Snow for Kansas; Director Porter 

 for Missouri; and we were asked to send agents into Iowa and 

 Nebraska. After correspondence with Prof. Bruner we ascertained 

 that investigation of Nebraska reports showed that nearly all were 

 unfounded, and therefore no work was done in that state. Prof. 

 Osborn, however, undertook a commission for a month, and the mate- 

 rial which we publish consists of his conclusions from his investigations 

 in Iowa. We learn from Prof. Forbes that he has been so fully occu- 

 pied in studying the one phase of the subject regarding the practical 

 use of contagious diseases that he has not been able to carry out 

 the proposed work as thoroughly as he desired. The general coopera- 

 tive series has, then, been partially a failure. Prof. Osborn's obser- 

 vations, however, are valuable, and his full report will be digested 

 and published, together with the incidental observations which have 

 been made in Illinois and other states. His inferences regarding 

 the question of hibernation are significant, and will bear comparative 

 reading with Mr. Marlatt's paper in this number on the same subject. 



Reviews of Entomological Publications. — One of the features of the pre- 

 vious volumes of Insect Life was the publication of many reviews of 

 experiment station reports and bulletins and other papers bearing upon 

 economic entomology, under the head of " Special Notes," and the inser- 

 tion under " General Notes" of other reviews of papers for the most 

 part not of especial economic bearing, but of general interest either 

 popularly or to the special class of readers interested in scientific work 

 in entomology. At the same time another division of the Department 

 of Agriculture, the Office of Experiment Stations, has been issuing a 

 most useful publication entitled Experiment Stition Eecord, which h.as 

 been devoted entirely to abstracts of the publications of the different 

 experiment stations in this country, and to short notes derived from 

 foreign publications of a similar character. This Experiment Station 



