378 
mologist for the year 1884 (p. 412). The wheat crop of one farmer in 
Marion County, Kans., was reported that year to have been damaged 
to the extent of a thousand bushels. 
A SEVERE CONORHINUS BITE. 
Mr. J. B. Lembert, of California, with whom we have had considera- 
ble correspondence, particularly on the subject of the bite of the Cone- 
nose, writes us, under date of May 7, that upon the 5th of May a 
Conorhinus stung him at 2 o’clock in the morning, while in bed, upon 
the middle toe of the left foot. Mr. Lembert used saliva to ease the 
itching sensation, but this continued and finally spread over the toes, up 
the instep, legs, thighs, and loins, where large, flat blotches were raised. 
It finally extended further up the hands and arms; his lips swelled; his 
neck, nose, and eyebrows itched and swelled on scratching, and his 
scalp was a mass of lumps from the same cause. He stood this as long 
as he could and then went out to a water ditch and soaped and bathed 
his body in cold, melted snow-water, and applied bacon grease thor- 
oughly. A little later he became sick at his stomach and took a strong 
cup of coffee. About sixo’clock in the morning the itching abated, but 
the swelling remained on his hand and foot until the next day. In a 
later letter Mr. Lembert states that he has noticed that the Conorhinus 
is attracted by carrion, and he explains a large number of the poison- 
ous effects of the bite by the mechanical conveyance of putrid animal 
matter to the wound made by the beak of the insect. 
A NEW REMEDY FOR CHERMES. 
A correspondent from Philadelphia writes us that having a fine tree 
of hemlock-spruce badly affected by Chermes pinicorticis, he was 
advised to dig a trench around the tree and put in chlorate of potas- 
sium aS aremedy for the insect. He followed the advice, and also 
used nitrate of soda in the same way. The result was that while the 
tree grew a little greener in the winter time, the summer saw it 
gradually dying. This remedy is new to us. It seems to be on a par 
with boring auger holes into the trunk and filling them with sulphur! 
CICADA EGGS. 
We have had several reports from the South and elsewhere that the 
old supposition as to eggs of the ‘‘Seventeen-year Locust” being poi- 
sonous is again revived. A correspondent in Mississippi writes that 
the woods are full of blackberries, but the negroes absolutely refuse to 
gather them because, as they express it, ‘‘Them singin’ locusses done 
pizened ’em with their aigs.” A newspaper item states that a little 
girl living near Jackson, Miss., was poisoned by eating blackberries on 
which the seventeen-year locust had deposited its eggs. It naively 
adds, however, that ‘she will live.” 
