November 23, 191 1] 



NATURE 



12 



lets, with three exceptions, viz. a set of three roughly 

 ' cut heavy rings, which may have been used in connection 

 with horse-harness. In section, one of the armlets (half) 

 measures no fewer than 21 mm. by 16 mm. 



Lead and Tin. — Last season three net-sinkers of lead 

 were found, to which one has been added this year. The 

 first object of tin has been found, viz. a small whorl 

 ! (? bead) ornamented with encircling lines of small punch- 

 marks. 



Querns. — Compared with the Glastonbury Lake Village 

 these are plentiful at Meare ; but the circular rotary 

 querns are rare as compared with the saddle-shaped speci- 

 mens, of which some well-preserved examples have been 

 found. 



Other Stone Objects. — Parts of circular blocks of stone 

 have been found, slightly recessed on one face and having 

 a narrow rim ; they show signs of intense heat, and may 

 be parts of moulds for casting thin bronze. A large 

 assortment of stone hammers and whetstones has been 

 found. 



Sling Bullets. — Several of the baked clay sling bullets 

 typical of the period have been collected. Under the clay 

 floors of the mounds three groups of selected ovoid stones 

 were discovered, the numbers being 99, 182, and 347 

 respectively. 



Spindle-whorls. — The former number of twenty-three 

 has this season been increased to forty-three. Most of 

 them are formed from discs of lias ; a few are of baked 

 clay, two being very large. 



Pottery. — Shards of pottery have been very numerous — 

 some three or four hundredweights. All of them have 

 bren scrubbed and preserved, being sorted under the 

 numbers of the dwellings. Several complete pots may 

 probably be built up some day. The proportion of orna- 

 mented fragments is high as compared with those from 

 the neighbouring village, and a great many new and highly 

 ornate designs have been added to the collection. Very 

 little ornamented pottery was discovered in the deepest 

 layers, and much of it bearing typical late Celtic designs 

 was found just under the flood-soil. The coarser plain 

 pots were generally found in the black earth and brush- 

 wood below the clay floors. 



Human Remains. — Two pieces of skull and one bicuspid 

 tooth. 



Animal Remains. — Found abundantly. The perforated 

 iioars' tusks and canine teeth of large dog were no doubt 



'"d as personal ornament. The enormous number of 



mes of young anima'.s indicates that the inhabitants of 

 this marsh village must have been great meat-eaters. The 

 r^niains of beaver and otter are frequently met with, and 

 Uo a considerable number of bird-bones. 



LEGISLATION AGAINST INSECT PESTS AND 

 PLANT DISEASES.' 



'T'HE effort to secure national legislation to keep out new 



and dangerous insect pests or plant diseases which 



1' may be brought in with imported nursery stock has been 



actively favoured by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 



st as the department in the past has promoted and 



ured legislation enabling it to exclude from the country 



-eased animals or to quarantine and stamp out animal 



-eases whenever such have appeared. In the case of 



inestic animals, the exercise of these powers has brought 



ormous benefit, and has worked entirely satisfactorily to 



..;■: livestock industry. It is reasonable to believe that like 



li benefits to fruit and forest interests, including the nursery 



business, will undoubtedly come from similar legislation to 



:< lude insect pests and plant diseases. 



The immediate danger which led to the recent effort to 



ure legislation was the discovery in 1909 of the abundant 



iportation and wide distribution into the United States 



wi nurs'-ry stock infested with brown-tail moth nests and 



orrasiunal egg masses of the gipsy motli. During the 



■ ars 1909 and 1910 such infested stock was carried into 



f-nty-two States, covering the country from the Atlantic 



aboard to the Rocky Mountains. During the first of 



■se years no fewer than 7000 winlor nests of the brown- 



1 moth, containing approximately 3,000,000 larva;, were 



' From Circular No. 37 of tlie U.S. lleparlment of Agricultute. 



NO. 2195, VOL. 88] 



found in shipments into New York State alone — seed 

 material enough to infest the whole United States within 

 a few years. During the second of these years 617 of 

 these nests were found on nursery stock shipped into the 

 State of Ohio, and a much larger number, approximately 

 the same as the year previous, were again sent into New 

 York. Smaller numbers of these nests, proportioned to 

 the amount of nursery stock received, were sent into other 

 States east of the Rocky Mountains during both these 

 years. Fewer brown-tail moth nests were received during 

 the season just ended (1910-11), owing to the agitation in 

 this country and more strict supervision by foreign Govern- 

 ments. 



So far as possible, this stock, as voluntarily reported by 

 customs officers and railroads, has been examined and the 

 brown-tail nests removed or destroyed by State authorities, 

 or, where these were not available, by agents of the 

 Bureau of Entomology of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture. Undoubtedly many shipments have not 

 been reported or examined, and it is quite probable that 

 local infestation has already started at different interior 

 points. The history of both the gipsy and brown-tail 

 moths in New England shows that these insects may be 

 present for several years without being noticed, slowly gain 

 headway, and then suddenly develop their full power of 

 destructiveness. 



It is scarcely necessary to comment on the danger from 

 the careless introduction and wide distribution of these 

 two orchard and forest pests. In a limited district in 

 New England more than a million dollars a year have 

 been spent for a long period in a mere effort to control 

 these two insects, and the General Government is now 

 appropriating three hundred thousand dollars annually to 

 endeavour to clear them from the border of main highways 

 and thus check their spread. These expenditures do not 

 take into account the actual damage done, but they do 

 serve as a measure of the danger to the whole country 

 from the recent distribution of these two insects on 

 imported nursery stock. 



As further illustrations of the constant risk from lack of 

 legislation may be mentioned two very recently introduced 

 insects which will undoubtedly prove very expensive pests 

 in future years. The European alfalfa leaf-weevil, on the 

 authority of the entomologist of the Utah Experiment 

 Station, Mr. Titus, was probably brought into LFtah on 

 packing of nursery stock or other merchandise from Europe. 

 This leaf-weevil has already destroyed much of the value 

 of the important alfalfa crop of Utah, and is spreading 

 into adjacent States. The other illustration is the Oriental 

 cotton scale (Pulvinaria psidii), probably the worst scale 

 pest of citrus and other subtropical plants in southern 

 Asia. This scale insect has recently been introduced into 

 Florida on imported stock, and is already well established 

 there. 



New plant diseases, against the entrance of which there 

 is at present no bar, may even more seriously jeopardise 

 the farm, orchard, and forest products of this country. 

 Imported potatoes from Newfoundland are now bringing 

 in the potato wart disease, which, wherever it has been 

 introduced in Europe, and also in Newfoundland, puts a 

 stop to potato culture. The importation of white-pine 

 seedlings is now bringing in the European white-pine 

 blister rust, which, if established and disseminated, will 

 destroy much of the value of our white-pine forests. 

 Absolute quarantine against these two plant diseases is 

 the only means of keeping them out. The chestnut disease, 

 now practically shown to have been introduced on trees 

 imported from Japan, illustrates what may quickly happen 

 from such unchecked introductions. 



More than half of the important insect enemies and 

 plant diseases now established in the United States have 

 been brought in on imported nursery stock, and new insect 

 enemies and new diseases are being thus introduced every 

 year. Twentv different insect pests, new to the United 

 States, some of them very formidable in the Old World, 

 have been intercepted in the inspections of the imported 

 material by this department this year, and this does not 

 include the introduction of brown-tail moth nests and other 

 European pests with import' d seedling stock. 



A properly enforced quar.niiine and inspection law in 

 thn past would have excluded inanv, if not most, of the 



