413 



A SECONDARY EFFECT OF THE FLORIDA FREEZE. 



In the last number of Insect Life we referred to tLe destruction 

 caused by the December and February freezes in Florida, and to the 

 fact that innumerable insects were killed off by the same cold that 

 killed many of the trees. Mr. Hubbard has found, as Avas quite to be 

 expected, that wood-boring- beetles are beginning to attack the trees 

 which were seriously affected by the cold. They enter both the wood 

 that is dead and that which, though enfeebled, is still living. Where 

 they enter dead wood, says Mr. Hubbard in a letter to the Crescent 

 City (Fla.) News, no attention need be paid to them; they will simply 

 aid in trimming the trees hereafter. Unfortunately the enfeebled con- 

 dition of the trees invites and permits the attacks of the borers in 

 portions that are yet. alive, and man^^ unless help be given them, 

 will be killed to the ground, or at least below the bud. 



To check the work of the beetles in living wood Mr. Hubbard rec- 

 ommends that a brad or small wire nail be driven into each hole, thus 

 plugging the hole and preventing the insect from finishing its work or 

 laying its eggs. In many cases the nail will reach and crush the beetle 

 itself. Where the gallery is longer than the nail, a piece of pliable 

 wire should be pushed in as far as it will go, and clipped off at the sur- 

 face of the bark. In the present critical condition of the trees the use 

 of powerful insecticides is not advisable, nor is it safe to coat the bark 

 with any substance to repel the borers. 



Several species of Scolytidie are concerned in this injury to orange 

 trees in Florida. Specimens of what Mr. Hubbard states to be the 

 largest and most destructive have been sent to the Department, and 

 l)rove to be Platyims compositus Say. 



SPRAYING ox A LARGE SCALE. 



Mr. W. E. Gunnis, of San Diego County, Cal., has been spraying his 

 trees with kerosene emulsion on a large scale in the following manner: 

 The apparatus is placed on the platform of a light wagon, and on the 

 front end is a tank of a capacity of 100 gallons, filled with the emul- 

 sion. A small electro-vapor engine on .the wagon operates a double- 

 action, high pressure, cylinder pump, and to this eight lines of hose may 

 be attached. The pump can be worked at a pressure of 200 pounds, 

 rendering the spray fine and strong, and capable of reaching to the 

 tops of the tallest trees where the hose is supported by ten-foot bam- 

 boo canes. Twenty-five or thirty acres of four-year old trees may be 

 sprayed in one day Avith the labor of four men. 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THERMAL SPRINGS. 



In the Lincoln (Xebr.) Evening Call of April 6, 1895, Prof. Lavrreuce 

 Bruner records under the above heading the receipt from Hon. John C. 

 Hamm. of living larva? captured by Mr. Hamm in a hot spring in Uinta 



