344 



Vineyards in this immediate vicinity, 4^ miles east of Selma, do not sliow any 

 trace of tlie insect, but tliey are found in rosebushes around our dwellings. 



Do you recognize the species and do you know a remedy? — [J. D. Power, P'resno 

 County, Cal., May 17, 1893. 



Reply. — * * * The insect which you send is a leaf-feeding beetle known as 

 Hoplia caUipyge. Since the Paris green has been tried without effect, you are 

 advised to spray with dilute kerosene emulsion. — [May 24, 1893.] 



Living Insects in the Human Ear. 



In your last issue of Insect Life I read your note on " Living Larvje in the Ear." 

 It is so like a case recounted to me yesterday that I feel like repeating it. A farmer 

 said about one and a half years ago a small green fly— he thinks it was smaller than 

 a house fly — buzzed around his head, and despite his efl'orts to drive it away it 

 entered his ear. It caused him much discomfort, scratching against the drum of the 

 ear. He tried to drive it out by slapping his ear; a friend worked in his ear with a 

 double grass blade ; at length the fly came out and flew aAvay. That night about 2 

 o'clock he awoke with pain and terrible noises in his ear; he introduced a camel's 

 hair pencil, moistened with oil, and found living maggots attached; after extracting 

 he went to a doctor, who syringed the ear out with a decoction of tobacco, removing 

 19 small white larvic of different sizes ; he removed one dead one after he went home 

 (27 in all). I called upon the doctor to-day, who conflrms the story, tobacco juice 

 and all ; the larvae or the treatments caused partial deafness for several months, but 

 at length nature has restored the normal hearing capacity. I am sorry not to be 

 able to give the name of the fly, as the farmer and his doctor paid no attention to 

 that. — [Henry Shimer, Illinois, December 9, 1891. 



Eucalyptus vs. Mosquitoes. 



I have the largest and oldest grove of trees of Eucalyptus gJohulus in this part of 

 California, and have had fifteen years of opportunity to study these trees as insect 

 repellants, and deem it my duty to respond to your request on page 268 of Insect 

 Life. 



Thirty-three years ago I spent a portion of one summer with a Dr. McConnell, who 

 had just returned from some years of residence among the Eucalyptus forests of Aus- 

 tralia. We were in the Sequoia {Sequoia sempervirens) forest of the coast region of 

 our State. The mosquitoes were eo bad there it was nearly impossible to work dur- 

 ing days when there was no wind. The doctor assured me that our common mos- 

 quito was never found in the Austrtilian Eucalyptus forests ond swamps, but added 

 there's a " sjiotted mosquito" nearly as bad there in some places. He not being an 

 entomologist, was unable to tell me whether the "spotted mosquito" was a species 

 of the genus Culex, or of some allied genus. 



The doctor being a reliable, close observer, I determined to test the anti-mosquito 

 qualities of the Eucalyptus, so when I began to improve my house here nineteen 

 years ago, one of the first things I did was to get a lot of Eucalyptus seed from Aus- 

 tralia and plant out a grove of the trees. The tallest of them are now over 140 feet 

 tall, and can be seen for 20 miles around. My house stands in the midst of these 

 trees. My irrigating ditch, a dozen feet wide, of sluggish current, runs through 

 the grove beside the house. There has never a single mosquito larva been seen in 

 this ditch from where it enters the first shade of these trees to where it emerges 

 from them 200 yards away; while above and below mosquito larvaj are plen- 

 tiful — not immediately below, but some hundreds of yards away, where the water 

 stands in pools and becomes stagnant among a growth of black walnuts and cotton- 

 woods. 



My live stock pasture in this timber, going into the walnuts and back again under 

 the Eucalyptus shade at pleasure. Frequently when the cows come up at night they 



