94 



happened to myself; only the past year, a maltster came to me 

 in great tribulation, as in a very large malthouse of several 

 stories, or floors, of malt and grain, they were overrun with 

 granary weevils. I went with him to inspect, and if possible, 

 to advise. There, sure enough, these devastating creatures 

 were in swarms outside the building, which was almost a new 

 construction, in the passages, offices, in fact everywhere, they 

 were much too numerous ; but the chief spot was in the malt 

 store. Here they were in thousands. I gave general in- 

 structions what plan to follow, and these were carefully 

 carried out, and as a result, they are now well in hand, their 

 number being considerably lessened ; in fact, not sufficiently 

 numerous to be of serious importance. 



The losses occasioned by insect ravages, is in some countries 

 so enormous, that their governments have seen the necessity 

 of taking special measures to try and arrest them. Thus, 

 America, Canada, Australia, and several Continental powers, 

 have added to their Department of Agriculture an Entomo- 

 logical Section. In America, this body carries out thoroughly 

 a system of practical and applied entomology, to lessen the 

 vast amount of destruction to crops caused by insect pests. 

 Professor C. V. Riley is chief of this section, aided by nine 

 staff officers and ten field agents. A magazine is published 

 by this body under the name of Insect Life, and a most 

 interesting work it is. It is written in a fairly popular 

 manner, often in the form of question and answer. The use 

 of scientific phraseology is avoided as much as possible in 

 order to enlist the attention and sympathies of the farmers 

 and fruit-growers, whose interest this work has been instituted 

 to protect. The great use of vulgar names of insects rather 

 strikes an English reader ; thus you find articles under 

 Army-worm, Boll-worm, Cut-worm, Screw-worm, Tent-worm, 

 and so on. Still, it is a very instructive volume indeed. 



Curiously, many of the insect pests of America, which 

 evidently commit a vast amount of damage there, are also 

 English species ; but with us, they rarely, or never, attain 

 injurious proportions. Thus the gipsy moth, Ocneria dispar, 

 L., a species not truly native in America, as it was 



