1 88 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [June, 



DEPARTMENTOF EGONOMIG ENTOMOLOGY. 



Edited by Prof. JOHN B. SMITH, Sc D., New Brunswick, N. J. 



Insect Life.— Since the above comments (see last News) on the San Jos^ 

 Scale were written, the New York " Sun " of April 3rd, has commented on 

 some of the contents of this same number of " Insect Life," and in a some 

 what diflferent strain. " If you see it in the " Sun " it's so :" that is, what 

 appears in every issue of that remarkably bright and interesting news- 

 paper ; but the difficulty is, although the "Sun" usually tells the truth, 

 it does not always tell all the truth, and this is the case when it comments 

 in rather a sarcastic and caustic manner upon two notes concerning the 

 migration of the Cockroaches, and the record of an abnormal Hight of 

 butterflies. It intimates that this must necessarily be of vast importance 

 to the agriculturists at large and gives the impression that it is practically 

 all that this number of " Insect Life " contains. It fails to tell the whole 

 truth, because it ignores the contribution to the life-history of the San 

 Jos^ Scale, which is certainly practical, and the paper on the new cotton 

 Anthonomus. The outcome of the frost in Florida, as far as the destruc- 

 tion of injurious insects is concerned, is certainly of some importance, and 

 indeed with the possible exception of the two articles above mentioned 

 comprising in all only two or three pages out of nearly eighty, everything 

 in the number is decidedly practical. This brings me to the real point 

 of this note ! It has been stated with more or less authority that " Insect 

 Life " was about to be discontinued at the end of the current volume. 

 It is to be hoped that this is a mistake, and that the authorities will not 

 be unfavorably influenced by criticisms of the character above referred to. 

 The volumes of " Insect Life " contain a great amount of practical ento- 

 mological information: they contain also much of scientific interest that 

 is indispensible to the student of Economic Entomology. " Insect Life " 

 has been criticised as journalistic in character, and so far as this has been 

 the case it has been open to criticism; but this is a minor feature, which can 

 be easily omitted without injuring the general character of the publication 

 itself. It has also been criticised for containing descriptive and sys- 

 tematic matter which has no place in a government publication of that 

 description. Admitting even this criticism to be valid, yet even with this 

 feature omitted, there would remain a great amount of valuable material 

 of an economic character, which is perfectly suitable for publication by 

 the government and decidedly useful to agriculturists and to other working 

 entomologists. It goes almost without saying that with a force of men, 

 such as are in the employ of the Division of Entomology, many inter- 

 esting observations are made outside of those investigations in which the 

 gentlemen concerned are especially employed. Yet their special employ- 

 ment only is made to form the burden of the Annual Report and the 

 subjects of periodical Bulletins issued from time to time. A vast number 



