Oct. 12, It 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



389 



or the mouth and quickly die. The poison is found in 

 all parts of the spider, even in the eggs. Chemically 

 speaking, this poison, which makes up one-fourth of the 

 weight of the spider ranks among the "enzymes," 

 peculiar, albumenoid bodies which are readily decom- 

 posed. If heated to 140 degs. F., or mixed with alcohol, 

 it is rendered harmless. If introduced into the stomach 

 it takes no effect, but if admitted into the circulation 

 that inisoo-part of the weight of the body proves fatal to 

 a man or any other warm-blooded animal. It appears 

 to surpass in virulence all poisons except that of serpents. 

 Among the spiders of Germany Brieger finds such a 

 poison present only in Epeira diadema, and that only 

 when young. 



Death from the Sting of an Insect. — -At Carlisle a 

 man has recently died from a sting in the hand. It is 

 not known whether the offending insect was a wasp or a 

 bee. We evidently do not yet know under what circum- 

 stances such stings may have serious effects. 



Species of Empusa. — The fungoid genus Empusa, 

 and the two small kindred genera Massopora and Basi- 

 dtobolus include, in the United States alone, twenty- 

 eight species. As most of them attack and destroy flies, 

 gnats, mosquitoes, etc., they must rank as highly useful. 

 The common Empusa muscce is unusually abundant this 

 season in England, and accordingly dead flies are found 

 attached to the window-panes and surrounded by a halo 

 of the fungus. 



Bees as Weather Prophets. — Professor Emmerig 

 regards bees as the most trustworthy indicators of 

 weather for the day. If a storm is impending they 

 become restless and irritable, and are even dangerous to 

 approach. When the bees and the weather glasses 

 differ, the insects will be found to be in the right. 



The Production of Silk in the World. — The total 

 yield of silk in the world has increased from 9,926 lbs. 

 in 1884, to 11,740 lbs. in 1887. Of this total 4,550 lbs. 

 were last year produced in Europe and 6,430 lbs. in 

 Asia. The production of India was merely the most 

 unsatisfactory quantity of 800 lbs., and Australia, with its 

 great natural facilities for this industry, does not figure 

 in the list at all. 



Introduction of Lobsters into the Pacific. — After 

 two unsuccessful attempts to transport living lobsters 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific a third trial has proved 

 successful. The animals were packed in special cases 

 between layers of sea-weed, and were daily sprinkled 

 with sea-water. Each case contained six specimens. 

 The cases were placed in larger boxes, and the inter- 

 mediate spaces were filled with broken ice. A special 

 drainage prevented the fresh water from the melting ice 

 from penetrating to the lobsters. On reaching San 

 Francisco 350 were still alive and were at once placed in 

 the sea, half of them to the north and half to the south 

 of the city. 



The Senses of Bees. — We have had occasion to 

 mention that bees clearly distinguish beet sugar from 

 cane sugar, rejecting the former. It now appears that 

 not only they but ants and even flies utterly ignore 

 " saccharine," which some human beings think identical 

 in taste to sugar. 



CATERPILLARS ON FRUIT TREES. 



"THE following valuable paper has been issued by the 

 -*• Agricultural Department : — In many of the principal 

 fruit-producing districts caterpillars have lately caused most 

 serious injury to apple, pear, plum, damson, filbert, and other 

 fruit trees, so that in some cases the whole crop has been 

 lost; and it is feared that the fruit- bearing powers of a 

 number of trees have been affected as regards the next 

 season. 



As methods of prevention should be adopted during this 

 autumn, and before the winter, with respect to the most 

 destructive species of these insects, it is most important that 

 fruit growers should be informed concerning these at once, 

 and before the appearance of the annual report of the agri- 

 cultural adviser, to be published in January, which will give 

 full details of the mischief caused by caterpillars, as well as 

 of the history and habits of the numerous species noticed on 

 fruit trees this season, together with remedies against them. 



When the blossom buds and leaf buds of fruit trees in 

 many places began to unfold, it was seen that they were 

 attacked by legions of caterpillars. Soon the blossoms and 

 leaves were entirely devoured, or so much injured as to be 

 useless. The fruit plantations in parts of Kent, Hereford, 

 Worcester, and some other counties where fruit is exten- 

 sively grown, looked as if a hot wind had passed over them. 



The caterpillars of various small moths were the authors 

 of this serious mischief. Among these the chief offender 

 was that of the Winter moth, Chcitnatobia brumata. 



Other species did considerable harm, whose life history is 

 much the same as that of the Winter moth, as, for instance, 

 among others, the pale brindled beauty, Phigalia pilosaria ; 

 the mottled Umber, Hyber?iia defoliaria, and Hybernia 

 aurantiaria. These may be placed in one group with regard 

 to the methods of prevention to be adopted against them. 



In another group are included the Lackey moth, Clisio- 

 campa neustria; the Ermine moth, Hyponomcitta padclla ; and 

 the figure of 8 moth, Diloba cteruleocephala, whose cater- 

 pillars were more or less destructive this year. 



The First Group of Moths destructive to Fruit 

 Crops. — Methods of prevention are comparatively simple 

 in the case of the first group, because of the peculiarities of 

 the female moths, which are practically wingless, and must, 

 therefore, remain not far from the spots where they have 

 passed their chrysalis stage, and hard by the trees upon 

 which they lived during their caterpillar existence. 



They may, therefore, first be destroyed while in the chry- 

 salis condition, which terminates towards the end of October, 

 in the ground around the fruit trees, by digging, hoeing, and 

 the application of caustic substances. 



Second, the female moths may be prevented from ascending 

 the trees for the purpose of egg laying by means of bands of 

 cloth or hay, and other obstacles put round the stems. 



The Winter moth is taken as the type of the first group, 

 and its life history is briefly described. 



The male moth varies in colour from ashy grey to light 

 brown, with dark streaks upon the wings, whose expanse is 

 about an inch. It is about half an inch long, It flies at twi- 

 light. Swarms of these insects were noticed last November 

 hovering under fruit trees and quickset hedges, in the foggy 

 evenings, in search of the females. 



The female is not quite so long as the male, of the same 

 colour, without wings, having an inelegant, distended body, 

 and might be mistaken for a large spider in the dusk when it 

 comes out and crawls up palings, posts, and the stems of 

 trees. Each female lays from 150 to 200 very small cylin- 

 drical eggs, greenish at first, but reddish later on, which she 

 fastens to the buds, or to the twigs and spurs, with a sticky 

 substance. 



In the first warm days of spring caterpillars are hatched 

 from the eggs, grey and thread-like in their early life, 

 becoming green with slightly brown heads, and rathei 

 yellowish as they approach the pupal period. When full 

 grown they are half an inch long. Having no ventral feet 

 they move like other " loopers," making a loop with their 

 bodies. They glue the petals of the blossoms and the leaves 

 together to form a shelter, and clear off all vegetation within 



