Vol. Xxiii] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 131" 



Attr.\ctiveness of Formic Acid(?) — Robert Venables, of Mulhouse, 

 Alsace, gives account in Nature for Sept. 21, 191 1, of his poodle 

 eating wasps, "generally catches them alive, evidently suffers some- 

 what from the sting, but only for ten or fifteen seconds." "Mr. 

 Venable's reference to formic acid {Nature, Sept. 21, p. 382) re- 

 minds me that once, in the pine woods at Potsdam, I came upon a 

 forester performing some curious evolutions, apparently patting some- 

 thing on the ground and then holding his hands to his face. He ex- 

 plained that it was an ant-hill, and the smell was 'very good for the 

 nerves.'" (E. Everett, Nature, Oct. 19, 1911). 



A LocusTiD INJURIOUS TO M.^N. — Dr. Hugh S. Stannus writes in the 

 Bulletin of Entomological Research, 1911, page 180, "among the natives 

 of Nyasaland [a Locustid, Enyaliopsis durandi, or an allied species] 

 is held to cause skin lesions by the emission of a fluid on the bare skin 

 surface of the body . . . having asked for a volunteer, I procured a 

 specimen of the Locustid in question and tested the truth of the native 

 statement. The insect was put on to the arm of the native, and then 

 worried with a penholder. It promptly emitted a slightly yellowish 

 clear fluid from pores at the side of the body near the junction of the 

 thorax and abdomen. This secretion was allowed to remain on the 

 arm. In a few hours a sensation of burning was produced, the skin 

 sHowed signs of reaction, swelling and redness, and twelve hours later 

 file superficial layers appeared to be dissolved, so that the pink skin 

 b^ieath was visible, covered by a serous exudation. This superficial 

 destruction of tissue healed in a few days without trouble. The se- 

 cretion was acid to litmus. I have little doubt that such a breach of 

 surface may in many cases be the starting point for extensive ulcera- 

 tion, if it becomes infected, as in a similar way small abrasions in the 

 native are often followed by ulceration, owing to lack of proper treat- 

 ment." 



Effects of Climatic Conditions on Development of Insects. — 

 Egypt presents two different regions from an entomological point of 

 view: (i) the valley of the Nile irrigated by numerous canals which 

 pefmit an intensive agriculture and which is favored by winter and 

 spring rains in its northern part; (2) a desert region which receives 

 only a little rain in winter which hardly suffices to produce a spontane- 

 ous vegetation in spring. It results from these special conditions that 

 the Lepidoptera which inhabit the Delta, or the Valley, of the Nile 

 produce several generations in the year, while those of the desert can 

 propagate by only a single annual generation. Thus the butterflies 

 most commonly seen in Egypt, such as Pieris rapae, Vanessa cardui 

 and others which live in the fields and cultivated lands of the Delta, 

 have several generations each year and the imagos are seen in all 



