314 



oil. Many peojjle are not satisfied to use the simple oil, but iusist upou mixiug tar 

 and other useless thiufts with it, which disfijrure the auiuial by causing the hair to 

 come otf. Almost every one in this neighborhood is now acquainted with this remedy, 

 but it may be well for me to direct your attcntiou to it for fiuure reference. We own 

 about two hundred mules, and our lauds extend from the margin of Wallace Lake 

 along that of Caunisuia and Edwards Lakes for the distance of 20 miles, where this 

 gnat breeds in vast numbers at this season of the year. We never had any serious 

 experience with these gnats until the spring of 1885, when we lost fifteen mules in one 

 week. At that time we were ignorant of the danger of their bites or the remedies 

 against them, and treated the mules for colic, as they swelled up and showed every 

 symptom of that disease. Since that time the gnats have come in swarms every 

 spring about this date. I attribute this to the fact that a raft of some 10 or 12 miles 

 has accumulated in Bayou Pierre, opposite to our possessions, which nuikes a perfect 

 breeding place for them. The Government is responsible for this raft, as all the logs 

 which were removed from the raft above Shreveport were directed by their engineer, 

 Major Woodru ft', into Jones Bayou, for the purpose of closing that stream. — [G. A. 

 Frierson, Frierson's Mill, De Soto Parish, La., March 11, 1889. 



Kki^i.y. — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your interesting letter of March 11 

 and to thank you for the information which it contains. We have come to practi- 

 cally the same conclusion in regard to the superior efficacy of fish-oil for Buffalo Gnat 

 bites. The conditions which you describe regarding the accumulation of logs in 

 Bayou Pierre are veiy favorable to the increase of the gnat, and I have no doubt that 

 you are right in attributing the abundance of these pests to the Government opera- 

 tions.— [March 18, 1889.] 



A Beetle living in an Insecticide. 



Some two or three years ago samples of various substances used for insecticides 

 were placed in the Agricultural Museum of Purdue University, at La Fayette, Ind. 

 As the object was merely to display the substances, they were placed in the glass 

 flasks, such as are used for similar displays of seeds, the mouth being in th • base 

 when the flask is in an upright position. One of these flasks contained several 

 ounces of powdered white hellebore, which, as it was never disturbed, had settled 

 into a somewhat conii)act body. On removing this flask a few days since the cork 

 stopper was found to have been burrowed through, evidently from without, and the 

 mass of powder was literally full of burrows and channels passing through it in all 

 directions. On tnruing the powder out upou a table and examining it carefully 

 two adult beetles of Tenehrioides mauritanica were found dead in the burrows in the 

 powder. How long these beetles had remained in the powder alive it is obviously 

 inipossible to state; but it would be safe to say that they entered it from motives of 

 choice, and either subsisted upon it or else did an incredible amount of tunneling 

 without sustenance. While at the time the beetles were removed from the powder 

 the latter was not fresh and did not retain its full strength, there still remained 

 enough to impart a tingling, burning sensation to the nostrils when any of the pow- 

 de*' was inhaled through the nose, yet not enough to set one to sneezing. — [F. M. 

 Webster, Purdue University, La Fayette, Ind., December 23, 1887, 



The new Flour Moth in England. 



We have a flour caterpillar in England — newly arrived, in the last two years — which 

 is so very troublesome and injurious where it establishes itself, that I should like to 

 place a short account of it in your hands, hoping that at your leisure (I should rather 

 say at your best convenience, for leisure youhave none) you may kindly tell me whether 

 you have it in the United States, and if so whether you manage to keep it in check. 

 The caterpillars were first observed in Europe in 1877, by Dr. Jul. Kuhn, of Halle, doing 

 much mischief in the process of grinding some American wheat. The imagos from 



