74 



EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 



Fertilization of Yucca in Australia. 



Having read several of your letters relating to the iiollinization of Yucca by Pro- 

 nuba species exclusively, I understand why the plants have no fruit here where else 

 they grow extremely Avell. However, either some of the Pronubas have been intro- 

 duced here, of which I have no information, or else some native moth has adapted 

 itself to the function, for on November 11, 1889, while on a visit to our Agricultural 

 College at Roseworthy with the Field Naturalist Section of the Royal Society of 

 South Australia, I noticed fruits in abundance on a tree in the garden of the director, 

 Professor Lowrie, to which I drew the attention of several of the party at the time 

 and also afterwards mentioned the fact in the Royal Society. As my office duties 

 prevented my making observations personally at a distant locality, nothing further 

 has been learned about the subject since. As I thought the matter might interest 

 you, I inclose the only Iruit secured at the time. * * *— [ J. G. O. Tepper, Curator 

 of Insects, Somerset Place, Norwood, South Australia, May 11, 1890, 



Reply. — I am very much obliged to you for your kindness in sending me the Yucca 

 pod accompanying your favor of the 11th ultimo. * * • The Yucca pod showed no 

 trace of Proniiia and the fertilization of the plant must be explained on the same ex- 

 ceptional grounds on which I have already explained similar poUinization of Yucca in 

 other countries where Fronuha can scarcely occur. The pod, though very much shriv- 

 eled, shows it to belong to the aloifolia section of the genus, but without a know- 

 ledge of the leaf and flower it would be risky to decide specifically. I shall be very 

 much obliged to you if you can at some future time send a larger supply, since it 

 frequently happens, even where Pronuia occurs, that the pods are free from its larva. — 

 [June 16, 1890. ] 



A New Sawily Enemy to Svceet Potatoes. 



I have sent you by to-day's mail a box containing some flies and their eggs on some 

 sweet potato leaves. Last year was the first time they made their appearance in my 

 potato patch. They came the 1st of July and deposited their eggs on the leaves; 

 when the eggs hatched these worms would eat the leaves to a comb. This con- 

 tinued for about 4 weeks. The potatoes, wherever the fly was, did not make any 

 yield at all. This year the fly made its appearance at the same time they did last 

 year. 'Will you please tell me what kind of a fly they are, and whether they will do 

 any serious damage?— [George W. Stockley, Keller, Virginia, July 2, 1891. 



Reply. — The insect which you send is entirely new as an enemy of the Sweet Po- 

 tato. It is a sawfly known scientifically as Schisocerus priratus. Some 5 years ago 

 another species of the same genus was discovered feeding upon Sweet Potato at Ocean 

 Springs, Mississippi. You will find it described on page 44 of no. 2, vol. i, of Insect 

 Life. Should this insect become very abundant it can be readily killed by the appli- 

 cation of Paris green in the proportion of one-fourth of a pound of the poison to forty 

 gallons of water. It is hardly likely, however, that it will prove to be much of a 

 pest.— [Julys, 1891.] 



Injurious Insects of Utah. 



Utah is certainly a most unfavorable place to make observations in economic ento- 

 mology, for there are neither grasshoppers nor crickets here this year. There is only 

 one important insect enemy visible at the present season, viz, that Tent-caterpillar 

 which has been sent to you on several occasions from this Territory. I failed to see 

 it in Salt Lake City, as well as near Mill Creek, which is in the center of the lower 

 cultivated (i. e., irrigated) area of Utah. I saw it first at Park City at an altitude 



