June -21, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



699 



I>laius east of the continental divide was 

 dedicated to Lieutenant D. D. Gaillard. I'. 

 S. A., a member of the International Boun- 

 dary Commission. The Gray Jackrabbit of 

 the Upper Rio Grande region, and the 

 Desert Jackrabbit of the Colorado Desert, 

 were described as superficially distinct fi-om 

 the Lepus texianus Waterliouse. The Mexi- 

 can Jackrabbit (Lepu.^ callotii "Wagler), witli 

 which several species inhabiting the United 

 States have hithei-to been confounded, was 

 shown, principally on the authority of Dr. 

 C. Hart Merriam, as the result of explora- 

 tions lately conducted in Mexico by his 

 Division of the U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture, to be wholly extralimital to the 

 United States, and not to occur near our 

 southern border. 



Diagnoses of the new Hares discovered 

 by Dr. Mcarns will soon appear in the pro- 

 ceedings of the U. S. Xational Museum, the 

 complete article to form a part of the bio- 

 logical report of the International Bound- 

 ary Commission. 



Dr. Erwin F. Smith read a paper on The 

 Biology of Bacilhos tracheiphilm u. sp., the 

 cause of wilt in various Cucurbits. The or- 

 ganism has been isolated and numerous in- 

 fections secured from pure cultures — more 

 than fifty — in the gTcenhouse under strict 

 control. The disease has also been induced 

 by spraying the bacillus on insects (Dia- 

 brotica vittata and Coreus tristis) and turn- 

 ing these loose on the plants, thus confirm- 

 ing a belief expressed in 1S93, and due to 

 field observations, that the disease is ordi- 

 narily transmitted by leaf eating beetles 

 and squash bugs. During the nine montlis 

 in which experiments have been conducted 

 under gla.ss, the only cases have been those 

 due to artificial infections, none of the nu- 

 merous control plants having developed the 

 disease. The paper described the mor- 

 phology of the organism, its behavior in 

 various media — agar, gelatine, potato and 

 sweet potato, beef broth, vegetable infu- 



sions, milk and various Siiccharine fiuids in 

 fermentation tubes ; resistance to heat and 

 dry air; behavior with .stains; growth in acid 

 and alkaline media, in hydrogen ; parts of 

 plants attacked, lesions, symptoms, time of 

 appearance after inoculation, etc. Numer- 

 ous repeated inoculations into potato and 

 tomato vines failed to induce anj- disease, 

 and the positive and negative evidence are 

 both conclusive that this disease is en- 

 tirely different from the southern potato 

 and tomato blight. Inoculations into pears 

 and hyacinths also gave negative results. 

 The organism used for infections was iso- 

 lated from the cucumber, and most of the 

 inoculations were performed on the cucum- 

 ber and muskmelon by pricking the germs 

 into the blade of a leaf. Experiments on 

 pumpkins and squashes are still in progress. 

 The prompt destruction of leaf-eating and 

 leaf-puncturing in.sects appears to be the 

 onlj' satisfactory way of combating this 

 disease. How this shall be done to best 

 advantage is a problem belonging to the 

 province of economic entomology. 



An interesting paper on the Means of In- 

 tercommunication among Wolres, by Mr. Er- 

 nest Thompson, was read. Mr. Thompson 

 gave first place to the sense of smell as a 

 means of olitaining information. 



M. B. Waite, 

 Recording Secretary. 



THE XEW JERSEY STATE MICROSCOPICAL 

 SOCIETY. 



The Society held its 2(ith annual meet- 

 ing on Monday. May 27th, and elected the 

 following oflicei"s for 1895-96; 



Pre.iident, Byron D. Halsted, Sc. D. 



Vice-Presidinf, Julius Nel.son, Ph. D. 



Becording Secretary, Frederick H. Blodgett. 



Corresponding Secretary, John Helm. M. D. 



Treamirer, A. C. Mutton, M. D. 



Curator, A. H. Chester, Ph. D. 



Librarian, Frederick H. Blodgett. 



Trustee (two yeare), Fred. B. Kilmer. 



