152 



doue is to diminish as miicli as possible their disastrous effects aud 

 render their injury supportable to the colonists. He considered that 

 there could be no ijrofit in sendinj;' out from the moist jars of the labora- 

 tory the spores which, in the hope of some individuals, would deUver 

 Algeria from the scourge of the locusts. 



A NOVEL MODE OF USING DISEASE GERMS. 



In many directions the commercial enterprise of the French people 

 is making itself felt. We have elsewhere referred to the striking 

 advances which have been made in France in the making of insecticide 

 machinery and the object of the i)resent writing is to call the attention 

 of our readers to a new branch of entomological commerce just insti- 

 tuted by a French firm. We have received a circular from Fribourg & 

 Hesse, 26 Rue des Iilcoles, Paris, offering for sale culture tubes for the 

 destruction of the White Grub. The circular gives an introductory 

 statement to the effect that the recent researches of Prillieux, Dela- 

 croix, and Giard have established the fact that there exists a specific 

 vegetable i)arasite of the White Grub which destroys it. Following 

 the learned methods of Pasteur, Messrs. Fribourg & Hesse have under- 

 taken the artificial production of this parasite — Botrytis tenella — upon 

 a vast scale and offer to agriculturists tubes containing the spores, by 

 the aid of which they will be able to utilize the discovery. They guar- 

 antee their cultures to be capable of communicating the disease to sev- 

 eral hundred worms. Trial tubes are advertised at 50 centimes, while 

 the commercial article costs 6 francs. 



The following methods of employment are recommended : 



(1) Take about a hundred White Grubs and put them iu an earthenware vessel of 

 sufficiently large size, the bottom of which should be covered with a bed of earth or 

 sand about a centimetre in depth aud slightly moist. Sink the vessel in the ground 

 in a cool shady place. 



(2) Pulverize very finely between the fingers the contents of the tube and scatter 

 them over the grubs in the vessel. The fragments which will not crush between 

 the fingers should be mixed with a little moist earth and scattered over the grubs. 

 Every grub should be touched by the powder. 



(3) Cover the vessel with pieces of board on which wet cloths should be placed, 

 or, better, wet moss. 



(4) At the end of six hours the grubs are attacked by the disease. They should be 

 taken one by one and placed in different parts of the field, at a depth of about 20 

 centimetres in the ground, taking care not to injure them. Put them gently in the 

 soil and cover them with earth. Choose preferably the worst infested places in 

 which to put the diseased grubs. 



It is a good plan to keep some of the diseased grubs from the vessel; with this in 

 view put them iu a flower pot with moist earth. At the end of fifteer days the grubs 

 should be dead, swollen, and of a clear rosy tint. 



MORTALITY AMONG FLIES IN THE DISTRICT. 



The comparatiV' e scarcity of flies of all sorts this summer in the Dis- 

 trict has been a matter of comment, whereas in neighboring towns flies 



