360 



and that it attacks particularly those individuals which have reached 

 the end of their evolution. It does not penetrate the tissues like En- 

 tomophthora and Isaria, but vegetates superficially and only becomes 

 [iangerous to the insect when it invades the tracheie and causes asphixi- 

 ation. Moreover, Lachnidium can only develop in certain conditions 

 3f humidity, which are rarely present in Algeria, and it is not proven, 

 50 far, that the cryptogam attacks the eggs of the Migratory Locust, 

 3ven when these have been laid by infested parents. The premature 

 glorification of Lachnidium as a specific for the Migratory Locust is 

 lot unlike the recent proposition of certain optimistic Californians to 

 3ease the spraying and fumigation of their citrus orchards for the Red 

 Bcale in the expectation that the new Australian parasites would do 

 ;he work more effectually and cheaply. As M. Giard pointedly remarks, 

 'In moments of public calamity, unfortunately, the people who suffer 

 leed no invitation to have recourse to the counsels of charlatans." 



GALL-MAKI]>rG COCCID^E. 



We have just received from Mr. Walter W. Froggatt^ oftheTechno- 

 ogical Museum of Sydney, :N^ew South Wales, a brief but extremely 

 nteresting paper entitled - Notes on the family Brachyscelida^, with 

 ome account of their Parasites and Descriptions of New Species," ex- 

 racted from Vol. vii of the Proceedings of the Linna-an Society of 

 ^ew South Wales. These remarkable scale-insects form curious woody 

 ;alls on plants of the genus Eucalyptus. The male galls are small 

 ube-like excrescences, with the apex dilated into a bell or cup like 

 orm, generally bright red or yellow, and are always found upon the 

 Baves or very slender twigs, except when they spring direct from the 

 emale galls. The female is usually cylindrical and grub-like in ap- 

 •earance, enveloped in a waxy secretion. She lies in a fleshy gall 

 ometimes a quarter of an inch thick, the head downward and the anal 

 nd pointing outward. The active, two-winged adult males emerge 

 fom their smaller galls and by means of their slender pointed abdomen 

 npreguate the imprisoned females through an apical orifice in the 

 3male galls. The young escape from an egg-mass within the body of 

 lie female and emerge through an opening in the gall, burying them- 

 elves in the bark or leaves and causing new gall growths around them. 

 Ir. Froggatt is of the opinion that parthenogenesis occurs Avith this 

 imily, since he has found clusters of active larva-, in the same gall with 

 lie perfect and evidently unimpregnated female. Mr. Froggatt rede- 

 sribes in the true genus Brachyscelis all the species described by Mr. 

 [. L. Schrader in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of New 

 outh Wales for 1862, and adds eight new species from material ob- 

 uned from various parts of Australia. These peculiar insects are of 

 3me economic importance, since, though they do not cause the death 

 f the Eucalyptus, they stunt the young trees in Eucalyptus planta 

 ons and render them weak and unfit for transplanting. 



