270 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [NoV., 'iQ 



An Investigation of the Louse Problem. By William Moore, 

 Associate Professor of Entomology in the University of Minnesota, 

 and Arthur Douglass Hirschfelder, Professor of Pharmacology in 

 the same. Research Publications, Univ, Minn., viii, No. 4, July, 1919. 

 86 pp., 2 figs., 16 tables. — A paper growling out of the recent war. 

 Although four-fifths of its pages are devoted to measures for check- 

 ing or destroying the clothes or body louse (Pediculus corports), a 

 number of biological observations, some confirmatory, others contra- 

 dictory, of the results of previous investigators occupy the early 

 parts. The authors' experiments were conducted on lice raised in an 

 incubator at 28-32 deg. C. and a relative humidity of 70-80 per cent., 

 with two feedings on human volunteers per day. In dealing with the 

 pathological conditions produced by lice "which had never bitten dis- 

 eased individuals," the possibility that the insects were hereditarily 

 infected is not considered. The effects of ordinary laundry practice 

 as destructive of lice and nits were investigated and some suggestions 

 for certainty of death are offered. The most valuable part of the 

 paper deals with the action of pediculicides, especially those suitable 

 for impregnation of underwear, and is pervaded throughout with the 

 endeavor to determine the principles governing the toxicity of various 

 substances, in line with Prof. Moore's researches published in the 

 Journal of Agricultural Research for 1917 and IQ18, instead of ex- 

 perimenting with all sorts of materials by a hit-or-miss empirical 

 method.— P. P. C. {Advt.) 



Seventeenth Report of the State Entomologist of Minnesota. 

 By A. G. RuGCLES. St. Paul, Minn., Dec. i, 1918. Rec'd. May 5, 1919. 

 — In addition to a general report on insect conditions in 1918. and 

 articles of economic interest on an oak twig girdler, Agrilus arcuatus 

 Say and var. torquatus Lee, "th* worst pest of black oaks discovered 

 in recent years," the relative values of different arsenic salts for potato 

 spraying, the carpenter ant as a destroyer of sound wood (of the 

 white cedar), the occurrence of Drosophila in bottled milk, methods 

 of combating the confused flour beetle and the clover seed chalcid, 

 by Messrs. Ruggles, Graham. Riley, Chapman and Williamson, this 

 volume contains three langer papers of taxonomic and geographical 

 importance : a synopsis of the tribes and higher groups of the Aphidi- 

 dae by O. W. Oestlund, and preliminary reports on the Trombidiidae, 

 and on the Hymenoptera, of Minnesota, by C. W. Howard and F. L. 

 Washburn respectively. Mr. Howard has not identified the chigger, 

 which not only attacks man but also birds, as the prairie chicken, 

 quail and pheasants, in Minnesota, farther than that according to 

 Oudemans it should be the larva of a Microtrombidium. Prof. Wash- 

 burn gives professedly incomplete lists of the Hymenoptera actually 

 identified from the State, accompanied by three four-color plates and 

 excellent half-tone text figures.— P. P. C. (Advt.) 



