l894-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 75- 



as he informed me that quite frequently he found that the woodpeckers 

 had not reached the larval burrows, having been either scared off, or had 

 become tired of the work, with all the probabilities in favor of the first 

 suggestion. A few days ago he sent me a larva taken from one of these 

 black oak sticks, and in this case also, a woodpecker had attempted to 

 get at the burrow; but had for some reason stopped short, giving this 

 larva a chance to mature. I had expected to find some Longicorn larva, 

 and was quite surprised to find instead a magnificent specimen of a Cossid, 

 which is almost certainly querciperda. These insects live for two or three 

 years in the trees, and the woodpeckers, therefore, have a very long time 

 to find them, and in that way few of them ever reach maturity and change 

 to moths. When these insects inhabit the lower parts of trees and be- 

 come nearly full grown, they make enormous channels, and these chan- 

 nels are very frequently taken possession of by ants, who make use of 

 them for their nests. It is, indeed, quite usual to attribute this work to 

 the ants. It would seem as if the nutritive value of these larvae must be 

 very high if it pays for the expenditure of force used in getting at them. 



A New Fact in the Life-history of the Silk-worm.— One learns from all 

 sorts of sources; even the daily papers sometimes give us extremely in- 

 teresting information concerning entomology. The latest that I have seen 

 is from the Neiu York Tribune for Jan. 31, 1894, and it gives us the new 

 information that " worms crawl out of their cocoons." The entire article 

 is as follows : 



" In the cargo of a steamer which recently arrived at a Pacific port from 

 China were a number of boxes of silk-worms, in transit for London. 

 After the steamer arrived in port the worms began to crawl out of their 

 cocoons. Holes had been bored in the boxes to give air to the worms. 

 They soon found the holes, crawled through them, and a number suc- 

 ceeded in reaching the deck, where they were picked up by visitors. An 

 enterprising man on shore saw the worms, bought all he could get, and 

 proposes starting a silk industry in Oregon." 



We wish the enterprising man the enormous success he merits. 



A Note on the Habits of the Cockroach. — It sometimes happens, even in 

 the best regulated families, that certain household pests make their ap- 

 pearance in rather annoying numbers, and these are not always insect 

 pests alone*. Recently it has happened that in the house occupied by me 

 there was ^n invasion of mice and roAch&s {Perip/atieta orientalis) and 

 some measures became necessary in order to get rid of them. A mixture 

 of even parts of borax and chocolate, finely powdered and thoroughly 

 mixed, proved tolerably effective, and it would probably have been per- 

 fectly satisfactory could I have had it applied thoroughly and persistently 

 for a sufficient length of time. They did not disappear soon enough or 

 completely enough to suit me, and I substituted a phosphoric paste, 

 which was promptly effective in so far that the roaches disappeared from 

 the lower regions where this had been used; but made their appearance 

 in the upper part of the house, where they were even less welcome. For 



