84 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [March, 



This expresses the opinion of the conservative students and those who 

 have most carefully studied the nature of fungus diseases in insects, ani- 

 mals or plants. The diseases may be fatally effective under certain cir- 

 cumstances — but we cannot produce the circumstances to order, and 

 while we are waiting for the necessary meteorological conditions the 

 chinch-bugs may destroy the crop. It is well to have the disease in hand, 

 ready for use in favorable seasons, but we must also be prepared with 

 other means as effective alternatives, some of which Prof. Forbes points 

 out. It is a fact, of course, that some insect diseases seem to be to a large 

 extent independent of heat or cold, wet or dry, and seem to be able to 

 spread rapidly in all weathers. Of this type is the disease which attacks 

 the larva of the clover-leaf h^^xX^— Phytonoinus punctatus. I have 

 watched it for five years in succession, and each year, no matter what the 

 character of the season, the fungus has attacked the half grown larvae 

 and has swept them away just when they threatened injury to the crop. 

 The factors that facilitate the remarkable spread of this disease are not 

 yet well understood ; but they are evidently quite different from those 

 controlling the " white muscardine" of the chinch-bug. 



Cabbage Root Maggot, Etc. — On this subject Mr. M. V. Slingerland giyes 

 us, in Bulletin 78, of the Cornell Experiment Station, nearly one hundred 

 pages of information. While the cabbage maggots are more especially 

 treated, there are incidental notes on other species and much information 

 is contained on the subject of maggots in general. The Bulletin is really 

 an exhaustive treatise which can only be commended, and the subject of 

 remedies is very fully treated. P^pctically, the recommendations narrow 

 down to tarred paper cards, put on when the plants are set out to prevent 

 oviposition on the surface at the base of the stem, and to the use of bi- 

 sulphide of carbon to destroy the insects when they have attacked the 

 plants. For the application of the bisulphide an injector is described 

 which seems practical. I have elsewhere expressed the conviction that 

 bisulphide of carbon would come into much more general use when its 

 range was fully understood, and when its cost was reduced to a point 

 justifying its use in the field. The question of cost has been recently 

 made satisfactory, and now it is in order to ascertain what can be done 

 with the material. Mr. Slingerland has proved its usefulness in one 

 direction; my experiments tend to show that it may be used against plant- 

 lice in the field, under certain circumstances; in the green-house its use- 

 fulness can scarcely be over-estimated, while in forcing beds, which can 

 be covered, it may be used as against all, except scale insects. Its use in 

 destroying insects infesting stored grain and seeds is well established. 



Oviposition in Cicada hieroglyphica Say.— During the latter part of June, 

 1894, a small party of entomologists spent three or four days collecting at 

 Anglesea, N. J., where many rarities have been found in times past, and 

 more yet remain to be found in times to come. Among the party were 

 Dr. Skinner and Mr. Hoyer, who were greatly exercised over a more or 

 less persistent "singing," which they claimed must be due to a Cicada. 



