IN SPAIN. 



notices of the generic and specific characters of the insect, 

 and of its natural history, with general observations on the 

 causes and occasion of its rapid increase in the province. 

 There are adduced climatic observations, with statements 

 of contributory effects, direct or indirect, which climatic 

 conditions may have had in favouring the rapid increase 

 of the insect. There &re next stated effects which may be 

 attributed to the diminution of carnivorous insects, 

 parasitic insects, and insectivorous birds, with references 

 to the occasion of this. Next are specified extensive 

 changes which had taken place in the culture of different 

 crops in the district, but not in adjoining districts, with 

 the effects of diminishingthe woodlands in it, and so affecting 

 the climate ; of starving out certain insects, and as a conse- 

 quence diminishing the aliment of insectivorous insects and 

 birds ; and, as a second consequence, leading to the diminu- 

 tion of these, but increasing at the same time the vegetation 

 supplying food for the Logarta the Bombyx Dispar of 

 Latreille, the Liparis Dispar of Linnjeus ; and thus 

 producing an extraordinary increase of the insect, and of its 

 ravages in the forests, with disastrous consequences. 

 Next, with courtesy but firmness, there are reported as 

 contributory causes the apathy and negligence of the 

 people ; the unsatisfactory condition of the municipal 

 guard as forest watchmen, and that of watchmen supported 

 by private proprietors of forest lands ; and in connection 

 with this the itiefficacy of the law as it exists to secure the 

 destruction of injurious insects; and the desideratum of 

 associations of forest proprietors and foresters for consulta- 

 tion and action in matters affecting the interests of owners 

 of forests and woodlands. 



A more commanding illustration of the application of 

 the knowledge of entomology to the averting of a threatened 

 calamity is supplied by what occurred to Spain, on the 

 invasion of Europe by the Phylloxera vastatrix. In many 

 of the vine-growing communities of Europe, on the appear- 

 ance and rapid spread of tie Phylloxera, there was great 



