84 



DESTROYING THE ROSE CHAFER. 



Mrs. George Ohrisuian, of Kockinghain County, Va., in a letter to the 

 Country Gentleman of July 2, 1891, proposes a novel course to be fol- 

 lowed under certain circumstances in fighting this noted pest. She has 

 observed that during the first day of their appearance they follow a 

 stream ov damp ground of some sort, never flying high, and can be 

 tracked to the hatching ground in that way. She drains the hatching 

 grounds and applies salt heavily as a fertilizer. On the second day, ac- 

 cording to her observations, they seem to be stronger, and leave the 

 water course, flying higher, when it is difficult to track them. The cir- 

 cumstances in her locality seem to be peculiar, but where similar sur- 

 roundings are found her plan is a good one. 



QUASSIA FOR THE HOP APHIS. 



Washington and Oregon hop-growers are again trying some of the old 

 remedies against the Bop Aphis. Among these a strong decoction of 

 quassia chips, diluted at the rate of one hundred gallons of water to " a 

 few gallons" of the decoction, was recently recommended through the 

 columns of a California journal. Careful experiments made in the New 

 York hop yards some years ago (see Report of the Entomologist, 1888) 

 showed that while a similar wash kills the lice when they are reached, 

 it will not spread like an oily mixture, and it is therefore greatly inferior 

 to a well prepared kerosene emulsion. 



SILK NESTS OF MEXICAN SOCIAL LARVvE. 



In reference to the note on pages 482-483 of vol. iii, with the above 

 heading, Mr. S. H. Scudder has kindly referred us to his remarks on 

 page 1,038 of his " Butterflies of New England," in which, in discussing 

 the general characteristics of the sub-family Pierinte, he refers to species 

 in the subfamily which are social, including Aporia crata'gi, a European 

 caterpillar, which lives in company " beneath a web spread over the haw- 

 thorn bushes." He refers to the Mexican species as Eucheira socialis, 

 which is found at an elevation of 3,200 metres above the sea, " where 

 the nest, as described by Humboldt and Westwood, is 8 inches long, and 

 made of tough layers of parchment-like silk, which Humboldt says can 

 be used as writing paper, and indeed was used as such by the early 

 Spanish fathers. It is suspended from a tree, and has a hole in the bot- 

 tom for the entrance and exit of the caterpillars. Within this sac they 

 undergo their transformations, and, being thus r)rotected, the chrysalids 

 are attached to the inner walls by their hinder extremity only, having 

 no need of the supporting girth that is otherwise invariably used 

 throughout this family." 



In reference to the same item, our esteemed correspondent, Dr. Alfred 

 Dug6s, of Guanajuato, Mexico, has sent us the following : 



In Insect Life, vol. iii, Nos. 11 and 12, p. 48:5, I iiud the description of a large 

 cocoou found ou the Madrono (Arbutus sp.?), and I notice that it is not known to what 



