1 890.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 35 



forests on the Continent for the last 200 years or more. The pest appears 

 at long intervals, but each appearance has been calamitous. In Bavaria 

 alone the loss in State forest revenue next year is estimated at /4o,ooo. 

 According to the report of Mr. Victor Drummond, the Minister at Munich, 

 the Winter frosts alone can now rid the forests of the caterpillars, and 

 then it is feared that the bark beetle will follow and attack the diseased 

 wood. Cuckoos, swallows and other birds, as well as wasps and other 

 insects, have helped to get rid of the " nuns;" torches and bonfires have 

 also been used with success; and the electric light, with a specially con- 

 structed exhauster, has been used with some success. Munich has been 

 invaded by the "nuns" in immense numbers, and in some places the 

 people were obliged to retreat before them. The Bavarian Forest Ad- 

 ministration fears that no measures of destruction are of any avail. " We 

 stand powerless before the immensity of the pest." It attacks by prefer- 

 ence the pme and fir, but, failing these, it does not despise the beech, oak, 

 and other forest trees; but it never attacks corn or wheat, and will never 

 touch the horse chestnut. The only efficient general measure seems to 

 be cutting down the whole forest infected, which makes the remedy worse 

 than the disease. The electric light already referred to works by attract- 

 ing the insects in swarms to the mouth of a large funnel, through which a 

 rapid exhaust current of air is forced, sucking the insects into a hole under 

 the ground, where they are buried. From a list of the various appear- 

 ances of the pest, it seems that the first was in 1449. In 1853 ^n attack 

 was made on East Prussia, but a storm drove the moths into the sea, 

 whence they were thrown up by the waves in a huge bank, 30 German 

 miles long, 7 feet wide, and 6 inches thick. 



A Dragonfly with an Abnormal Wing. — A female of Libellula 

 pulchella Drury, which I have lately examined, has the left front wing 

 imperfectly developed. This wing is but three-fifths of the length of the 

 right front wing (which is normal). The shortening has taken place 

 throughout the entire length of the wing, but chiefly in the space between 

 the nodus and the pterostigma. The median sector separates from the 

 principal sector at about the usual place — half way between the triangle 

 and the nodus — but it is very short, as it curves and joins the subnodal 

 sector at about the same distance from the origin of the subnodal, as that 

 between the origin of the subnodal and the point of separation of the 

 median and principal sectors. The subnodal sector has its origin and 

 position much as normal, but under the pterostigma it bifurcates. The 

 short sector is bifurcated near its extremity, but is otherwise normal. 

 The nodal sector is absent, unless it be represented by a short curved vein 

 in the costal space between the nodus and the pterostigma, extending 

 from the nodus to the median nervule. The discoidal areolets are entirely 

 irregular. The two sectors of the triangle are broken and very irregular. 

 The pterostigma is a little broader than normal, the apical spot is not as 

 large; the nodal spot is represented by a streak with the same oblique 

 trend as the normal spot. 



