280 Transactions of the American Institute. 



What I meant to say was, that thrifty trees are not so easily hurt 

 as those in a less thriving condition. 



ANTS. 



Mr. H. E. Eobinson, Warsaw, N. Y. — Sometime since I read in 

 a work on Natural History that lice serve as a kind of dairy to 

 ants. The lice secrete a sweetish liquid substance, which is expelled 

 either at the solicitation of the ants, or when the vessel becomes 

 over charged, and the ants even provide for them in the winter. I 

 intend to make observations in regard to the matter when I get time. 



Dr. Isaac P. Trimble. — Ants are as kind to the lice as dairy 

 people are to their cows. I have seen an ant go to a louse and par- 

 take of a transparent substance which they exhale. If I were sick, 

 I should like nothing better than to have a rose bush near my win- 

 dow, covered with lice, so that I could watch them and study their 

 habits. 



Mr. Thomas Cavanach. — The doctor certainly never tad much 

 to do with green houses. 



Mr. Hamilton. — I have here an insect exterminator, costing one 

 dollar and fifty cents. It is of tin, round, and about eight inches 

 long, with a sharp sprout or tube at one end, and a hollow globe 

 made of rubber at the other. Tobacco or cinnamon is placed in 

 the tin barrel and lighted. By pressing the rubber bellows the 

 smoke is forced out in a continual stream at the small end of the 

 fumigator. The machine resembles a common large-sized syringe. 

 A little girl and myself have killed over three hundred bed-bugs in 

 a short time with the fumigator. From Maine to Oregon, I have 

 found that the people generally think insects a great nuisance. I 

 suppose you are not troubled much with bed-bugs in New York, but 

 I have seen places where they were very bad. 



Mr. Thomas Cavanach. — I know of several kinds of bugs that 

 are not affected at all by smoke of any kind. As for bed-bugs, I 

 am never troubled with them. 



Mr. Hamilton. — I see I am misunderstood. I claim that I can 

 kill all kinds of insects on cattle, sheep or dogs. 



Mr. Wm. Lawton. — I think the instrument is very useful for 

 applying smoke of all kinds. 



Mr. John Crane. — We know that bed-bugs often get into holes 

 and cracks, so that it is hard to get at them. I think this fumigator 

 is a ffood thins: to drive them out. I have ciu'ed chickens of the 

 gaps by using smoke. 



