81 



GENERAL NOTES. 

 LEAD-BORINGr INSECTS. 



We notice in the Scientific American of June 13, 1891, an item quoted 

 from the Ocsundheifs Ingenieur of January 15, 1801, in which K. Ilart- 

 mann relates a case of a lead pipe " cut through by an insect that was 

 actually found with its head in the hole i)ierced by it. A 

 workman was called to repair a defective pipe which had 

 been injured on a previous occasion, as was reported, by a 

 'nail hole' occurring in a soldered joint. This time the 

 worm (a ' wood wasp') causing the mischief was found in 

 situ. The hole on the exterior of the pipe was of a rounded 

 form, about one-quarter of an inch long by one-eighth inch 

 wide, and the penetration was through the entire thickness 

 of the metal." Fir i.-Mini6 



ball guawod 



A similar instance of an insect boring through metal was i>y wood -boi- 

 reported by IVIr. Charles E. Dodge in Field and Forest for ".'^ ^TJ^ ''f 



siiC6 (fitter O. 



June, 1877, p. 217. He says : u. Dodge). 



We recently received a siugular specimen of insect injury in the shape of a " mini6 " 

 ball which had been gnawed through by a wood-boring larva. The ball had been 

 fired into a red oak tree, probably during the war, and when split out of the log, a 

 few days ago, was found in the track of a full grown larva, probably of an Ortho- 

 soma, the burrow leading directly tbrougli the bullet. This the grub had evidently 

 struck at its concave end, boring two-thirds its length and coining out at one side, 

 somewhat below the apex. The larva was found in the burrow, alive, only a short 

 distance above the bullet, the latter nearly retaining its normal shape, the end only 

 having been slightly flattened. The specimen was found by Dr. W. O. Eversfield 

 near the Agricultural College, Maryland, and both bullet and larva are preserved 

 together. 



We publish an illustration of the minie ball described above, now 

 preserved in the National Museum, showing the burrow of the larva 

 from the concave end of the bullet upward and outward. 



DAMAGE TO TITRNir AND SWEDE CROPS IN EASTERN BRITAIN. 



BelVs Messenger of July 27 contains an account of the damage which 

 is being done the present season on the east coast of Britain to the tur- 

 nip and swede crops by the caterpillar of the Diamond-back Moth 

 [PluteUa crueiferarum), known in this country as the Cabbage Plutella. 

 Miss Ormerod is said to have issued a leaflet on the subject and to have 

 distributed it widely through the affected region. The principal dis- 

 tricts affected are about Lowestoft, in Norfolk ; Ilolbeach, in Lincoln- 

 shire, and several localities in Yorkshire and Northumberland, Berwick, 

 the Lothians, Fife, and Forfar. 

 7911— No. 1 6 



