153 



have been uiuisually troublesome. This anomaly may tiud its explana- 

 tion in the remarkable destruction of certain tlies by a common Empusa 

 disease. In a recent stroll tlirouj^h the <;rounds of the Afjricultural 

 Department the under side of the leaves of various trees was found to 

 be quite thickly covered with dead tlies, attached by a fungous growth. 

 The abundance of the tlies can be surmised from the fact that a single 

 leaf not infrcciuently contained as many as eight or ten specimens. 

 The tlies, for the most part, belong to a common species, Pollenia rudis 

 Fabr., which occurs abundantly in the late smnmer and fall on out-door 

 vegetation, but include various smaller forms, some of which are proba- 

 bly referable to the House Fly, and among others, the common species 

 L\icilia ccvsar. I do not know that the occurrence of flies in such num- 

 bers, destroyed by this disease on outdoor vegetation, has hitherto 

 been recorded. Mr. W, T. Swingle has kindly examined the flies for 

 me, and reports that the disease is not the common fungous disease 

 of the House Fly {Empusa mtiscce), isolated (;ases of which are not un- 

 common in houses during the late sununer and early fall, but is one of 

 R. Thaxter's new species, viz, E. americana., which occurs as far as 

 known always outdoors on vegetation, etc. 



The discovery of this great mortality among flies is interesting, in 

 view of the economic importance which the subject of the diseases ot 

 insects bids fair to assume in the near future, and would seem to indi- 

 cate that the season has been especially favorable for the propagation 

 of such diseases. — C. L. Marlatt. 



A FAVORABLE VIEW OF THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 



We have received from the author, Mons. P. Pelicot, honorary member 

 of the Protective Societies of Paris and Brussels, a very interesting 

 brochure entitled '' Un Passereau a Proteger," which is an attempt to 

 rehabilitate the sparrow in i)ublic estimation. The work is popular in 

 style, and while we do not agree with the author's conclusions, we can 

 recommend the book as a most interesting contribution to a vexed ques- 

 tion. In sup})ort of his argument that the sparrow is beneficial rather 

 than harmful, he gives a table of the estimates nmde by several authors 

 of the numbers of insects devoured by a sparrow in a given time. 

 These approximations A'ary from that of Blatin, who gives " approximate 

 estimates" that two sparrows will destroy 1,200 insects {Hannetons — 

 chafers) in 12 days, to the estimate of Tschudi, who thinks that a single 

 sparrow will destroy 1,.500 larvae in 24 hours. The author deprecates 

 the slaughter of the sparrows by gun or x)oison, and gives as a sure i^ro- 

 tection for fruit trees and garden crops the stringing of threads of red 

 wool, or of any other striking color, on the branches of the trees, or on 

 small stakes close by the crop to be protected. This very simple device 

 he claims to have tested himself and found it a perfect protection from 

 the sparrows. It may be worth trying by those who believe that the 



