328 



Cataloguesof Oriental Insects.— Oar esteemed correspoudeut in Bengal, 

 Mr. E. T. Atkinson, C. G., Accountant-General of the Treasury at Cal- 

 cutta, has undertaken the gigantic task of prei)aring catalogues of tJie 

 Class Inseota belonging to the Oriental Region. It is intended to 

 include therein all described species up to date. These catalogues 

 will be of great use to workers everywhere. The first one, which em- 

 braces the Cicindelidse, Mr. Atkinson writes us, under date of March 

 12, will appear in a few weeks. 



A new Government Publication.— We have received the first number of 

 the Journal of the Board of Viticulture, a publication just inaugurated 

 by the Agricultural Department of the colony of Victoria, Australia. 

 This first number is a small octavo of 80 pages and contains the minutes 

 of the proceedings of the Board of Viticulture for Victoria, an account 

 of a conference of vignerous, held in August, 1888 ; of a conference of 

 fruit-growers held in September, 1888; a number of papers relating to 

 vine growing in California and the British colonies, and a notice of a 

 proposed college of viticulture. The number contains considerable 

 matter of interest to entomologists, and we notice that in the discus- 

 sions it seen)s to be an accepted fact that the Grape- vme Phylloxera has 

 obtained a hold in Australia. There is also the report of some discus- 

 sions regarding the appointment of a qualified entomologist and of the 

 introduction into Parliament of an insect pest act. The journal is to 

 be published monthly at the expense of the government, provided the 

 vine-growers show their interest in the matter by joining a central 

 vine-growers' association, and subscribing to the association half a 

 guinea annually. 



NOTE ON THE GENUS LESTOPHONUS.* 



By S. W. WiLLiSTON, M. D., New Haven, Conn. 



In the abstract of the Proceediugs of the Linnaeau Society of New 

 South Wales for February 27 of the present year Mr. P. A. A. Skuse 

 states that he has recognized two species in what I had erroneously 

 considered one, and described, rather too briefly I may say, as Lesto- 

 phonus icerycc. He is also of the opinion '' that the geuus Lestophonus 

 can be included in the family Oscinidw only as an anomalous genus. 

 Not only is the arista of the auteunai entirely wanting, and the anal cell 



*Tlii8 genus Lestophonus, it will be remembered, was erected by Dr. Williston iu 

 No. 1 of the curreut volume of Inskct Life for the Australian parasite of Icerya pur- 

 chasi — the Fluted Scale of California. It is the same parasite w hich Professor Riley 

 Las had imported into California in such numbers from Australia during the past 

 winter months. The question of the identity of the form bred from Monophla-bus 

 and that bred from Icerya is of extreme practical imiiortance for the reason that 

 ©wing to the comparative rarity of Icerya in Australia a large i)ortiou of the Lesto- 



