788 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 678 



Pelser Berensberg. Mr. Berensberg is 

 located at Durban, and is port examining 

 officer, inspecting and treating all ship- 

 ments of fruit and fruit trees and plants 

 entering the port for Natal and the inland 

 colonies. The laboratory facilities are 

 poor, but excellent work has been done by 

 Mr. Fuller and his force. 



In the newly established colony of the 

 Transvaal a department of agriculture 

 was immediately established, and Mr. C. 

 B. Simpson, of the force of the Bureau of 

 Entomology at Washington, was sent out to 

 take the appointment as entomologist. Mr. 

 Simpson did excellent work from the very 

 outset; he took hold of the problems exist- 

 ing—and some of them were very seri- 

 ous—with energy, enthusiasm and tact be- 

 yond praise. His success was great; he 

 secured the confidence of his constituency 

 at once; he was given assistance; he con- 

 ducted investigations on the ordinary crop 

 pests, upon the malarial mosquitoes, and 

 finally was given a large sum, amounting 

 to $60,000, for locust destruction. In this 

 destruction work he was very successful; 

 in fact, it seems safe to say that his work in 

 this direction was the most important that 

 has ever been done against insects of this 

 class. His death from typhoid fever, 

 which occurred in the autumn of 1906, was 

 a great loss to the Transvaal, and a great 

 loss to economic entomology. I have not 

 learned that his successor has been ap- 

 pointed, but whoever he is, or may be, he 

 will find, or will have found, that his work 

 has been made easy for him by the labors 

 of Simpson. 



AUSTRALIA 



The Australian states of Victoria, New 

 South Wales, Queensland, South Australia 

 and Tasmania have all continued to in- 

 terest themselves to a very considerable ex- 

 tent in economic entomology ; and Western 

 Australia has taken up the problem, 

 though in quite a different way. 



In Victoria Mr. Charles French con- 

 tinues to hold the office of entomologist to 

 the government and continues his excellent 

 work, publishing from time to time upon 

 insects injurious to vegetation. His hand- 

 book on the "Destructive Insects of Vic- 

 toria," of which the first part was pub- 

 lished in 1891 and the second in 1893, has 

 been continued; and the third part, pub- 

 lished in 1903, in addition to injurious in- 

 sects takes up the consideration of certain 

 valuable insect-destroying birds. 



In Tasmania the work was continued 

 until comparatively recently, but I have 

 heard nothing in the last few years from 

 that state. 



In South Australia Mr. J. G. 0. Tepper, 

 in charge of the entomological department 

 of the South Australia Museum, has acted 

 as consulting entomologist for the agricul- 

 ture department, although he is not now 

 officially connected with the subject of ap- 

 plied entomology in that state. In 1894 

 Mr. George Quinn, horticultural instructor 

 and chief inspector of fruit under the so- 

 called "vine, fruit and vegetable protec- 

 tion act," became connected with the de- 

 partment of agriculture for the purpose of 

 carrying out the law and trying in a gen- 

 eral way to place horticulture on a sound 

 footing. This law empowered the au- 

 thorities to deal with, and regulate, the in- 

 troduction into the state of fruits, plants, 

 insects and diseases, and to make regula- 

 tions for enforcing attention to any which 

 might be already found injuring plant life 

 in the state, or which might from time to 

 time be introduced into the state. The law 

 has been enforced in regard to the codling 

 moth and the red scale, and a system of 

 supervision has gradually been initiated 

 over all the imported fruits and plants. 

 They have prohibited the introduction of 

 grape vines or portions thereof, and have 

 set aside Adelaide as the sole port of entry 

 of fruits and plants. Plants sent by 



