154 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



talking earnestly of irrigation; in others, our 

 soil is thin, and there they are making arrange- 

 ments to fertilize ; but where is the locality that 

 is taking any special stand towards encouraging 

 a promulgation of entomological knowledge — 

 the very thing, among all others, of which we 

 are really in greatest need? 



I can form no reasonable hypothesis by which 

 to account for this, unless it be, that since our 

 new life, as it were, began, we have been too 

 closely engaged in meeting our immediate 

 necessities to be able to give proper attention 

 to even our greatest wants. In fact, we can 

 plead nothing else ; for the good results that are 

 coming to light in those States encouraging 

 entomological research, though less cursed with 

 noxious insects than our own section, renders 

 it impossible for us to reasonably feign an igno- 

 rance of the benefits to be derived. 



It is, undoubtedly, a mere question of time 

 with us, and I hope our culturists and others 

 who wish to see our section great, and know 

 the channel through which her greatness must 

 come, will take early steps to make that time 

 as short as possible. Let us have a State Ento- 

 mologist in each Southern Stdte, and thus save 

 to our interests, at a cost too insignificant to 

 mei'it a mention, millions of dollars every year. 

 A little agitation rightly put in will bring the 

 thing about at no distant day — all required is 

 for the proper persons to take hold of it with a 

 determination to succeed. And I would urge 

 upon every Horticultural Society, and every 

 other clnb or society of culturists in the whole 

 South, to leave no steps untrodden, in the mean- 

 time, that could tend towards interesting the 

 people in Entomology. Bring up the subject 

 at your meetings — discuss it — read aud post 

 yourselves in the intervals of your comings- 

 together, and, above all things, urge your peo- 

 ple to benefit themselves by patronizing some 

 publication devoted to the science. A good 

 work towards checking the ravages of noxious 

 insects may go on in this way before an Ento- 

 mologist is ofiioially in the field. 



Look out fob a Bad Baa. — The Harlequin 

 Cabbage-bug (Strachia histrionica, Hahn), re- 

 ferred to on page 79, Vol. II of this magazine, 

 is moving northward with such rapid strides as 

 to make me think it highly probable that our 

 friends above the Ohio will form its acquaint- 

 ance in the course of the coming summer. In 

 1866 it appeared in Texas, and in 1867 we found 

 it in the Carolinas near the coast, and in Geor- 

 gia, Alabama and Mississippi, as far up as 

 Macon, Tuscaloosa, aud Columbus. In 1868 

 its fall brood (it hatches two bi-oods each sea- 



son) appeared along the northern lines of Mis- 

 sissippi and Alabama. In 1869 both broods 

 hatched along these lines, working wholesale 

 destruction, while its fall brood was noticed in 

 Tennessee, above Humboldt, and almost as high 

 as Nashville. 



So far, the change of climate does not seem to 

 have affected this insect in the least — it was as 

 numerous and as destructive along the southern 

 line of Tennessee last summer as it had pre- 

 viously been at any point further south. A 

 careful study of its character has warranted me 

 in predicting that it will scarcely stop short of 

 the great lakes. 



A Cheap Mosquito Bak.— There is a pai'a- 

 graph now going the rounds of the Southern 

 papers to the efiect that oil of pennyroyal scat- 

 tered about a room in small quantities will keep 

 mosquitos out. I know that pennyroyal is 

 offensive to some insects, and never having 

 tried it on the mosquito, I might feel inclined 

 to think that some other person had, did the 

 paragraph not go on further to state that " a 

 handful of cucumber parings scattered about 

 the house " would exterminate roaches, and that 

 no fly would light on a window previously 

 " washed with water in which a little garlic 

 had been boiled." It would be hard for one to 

 put much faith in such a "roach exterminator;" 

 nor could he readily believe garlic so very dis- 

 agreeable to flies, since personal observation 

 has so often told him that in the cities the best 

 begarlic'd regions are the regions in which they 

 do most delight to congregate. An association of 

 all these things point to the conviction that the 

 writer was no better informed on one branch of 

 his subject than on the others, and that, conse- 

 quently, pennyroyal would stand a fair chance, 

 at least, of being a very unsafe thing to rely on 

 as a mosquito bar. 



But there is a cheap mosquito bar in vogue 

 among the plantation-hands and boatmen in 

 some parts of the South, which answers every 

 purpose to the letter: it is common coal oil. A 

 small quantity of oil is dropped on a piece of 

 cotton and then squeezed out as dry as possible ; 

 after which the cotton is rubbed over the face 

 and hands. No mosquito will alight where the 

 scent has been left. I have tried it and then 

 exposed myself to clouds of them on various 

 occasions without experiencing the slightest 

 annoyance. Thousands of them would hover 

 within an inch of my face, and sing by the hour, 

 but none would dare touch. 



Without having tried it, one would naturally 

 suppose that the smell of the coal oil would be 

 very disagreeable : not so ; one never smells it 

 at all in five minutes after it has been applied. 



