41 



Finding that thrrr was a regular inailboat service to Palermo, Sicily, 

 every evening, with letters to Dr. Perez, in charge of the entomological 

 work in Sicily and Curator of the University Museum, I reached Palermo 

 early <m Sunday morning, and spent the day with Dr. Perez among the citrus 

 orchards a fc\v miles outside the town. Most cf these orchards are enclosed 

 in high stone walls, and are regular thickets of trees which are all standarded, 

 having no branches up to 4 or 5 feet from the ground, and often much 

 higher ; planted at all sorts of angles they form a regular thicket above 

 one's head. The trees are all grafted or budded about 3 or 4 feet above the 

 ground on the stem of a wild orange. It is said by the orchardists that 

 trees grafted in this manner are not subject to collar rot. Very little atten- 

 tion is paid to pruning, and most of the trees are said to be from sixty to 

 seventy years of age ; they are planted from 9 to 12 feet apart. 



Returning to Naples i left for Rome the following day, and then met 

 Professor Grassi, one of the leading authorities on insect anatomy in Europe, 

 and well known for his work in connection with mosquitoes and malarial 

 fever. He showed me many interesting specimens upon which he was 

 working ; among them the life history of a blood-sucking fly, allied to our 

 sandfly (Phlebotomus papatasi), which he had bred in the solid sediment of 

 the city sewers. In old times these flies were such a serious pest and so 

 numerous that it was impossible to live in some districts. He has also done 

 a great deal of work on termites and their internal parasites. 



With regard to the leaf-galls of phylloxera, which I was told in Mont- 

 pellier were rare in France, Professor Grassi says that they are quite common 

 both in France and Italy on the lowest leaves of American vines growing 

 in damp ground at some seasons of the year. Among some interesting 

 specimens he gave me was a fresh- water crustacean (Aims, sp.), which is said 

 to be so numerous in some parts of Lornbardy that it cuts off quantities of 

 young rice growing in the water. The waters of our western swamps teem 

 with a closely allied Apus, which might, under such conditions, become a 

 pest, though at present it is a source of food to our wild ducks. 



The Agricultural Museum was afterwards visited. It contains a large 

 exhibit of both agricultural and technical specimen^. Here also was dis- 

 played a fine collection of the insectivorous birds of Italy, though they have 

 no protection of birds in Italy, and not only kill all their own native birds 

 and eat them, but erect trap? all along the sea-coast to capture the great 

 flocks of migrating birds crossing from Africa to Europe. 



At Florence I found that Professor Berlese had left that morning for 

 Genoa, but met the assistants at the Entomological Branch, and was shown 

 over the different divisions by Drs. Guercio and Paoli. With them I went 

 into the spraying of olive fruit-fly and other mechanical methods, which are 

 given in detail later on. Besides the olive fly they have several destructive 

 .scale insects, one of which, Diaspis pentagona, is very prevalent upon mul- 

 berry trees ; if neglected it often kills them. As the mulberry is very 

 extensively grown in northern Italy for feeding silkworms, anything that 

 interferes with the output of silk is a serious matter. Lecanium olece is 

 common, but more a pest in gardens and small plantations. Wiring to 

 Dr. Berlese to wait for me at Genoa, I left the following afternoon and met 

 him in the evening, when we talked over his methods till late in the night. 

 Here I visited my valued correspondent, Dr. Gestro, Curator of the Museum; 

 We compared notes on New Guinea insects, and I saw some of the entomo- 

 logical collections. Then I went to the University of Genoa, -and with 

 Dr. Ricca examined the herbarium and large series of hot- houses and 

 collections of plants belonging to the School of Botany. 



