64 General Notes. 
spontaneously over a large area, will soon suppress what has prob- 
ably been the longest continued destructive outbreak of the chinch 
bug known in the history of that insect. Their present activity is 
illustrated by the fact that in a single field in Southern Illinois dead 
chinch bugs imbedded in this mould were found by an assistant, Air. 
John Marten, so numerous as to suggest a recent flurry of snow.— 
8. A. Forbes (in Psychey Oct., 1888). 
Poison" of Hymenoptera. — One of the most interesting phe- 
nomena met by the student of the habits of insects, and one that has 
long excited wonder, is the fact that the Digger-wasps or Fossorial 
Hymenoptera sting the insects with which they provision their nests 
in such a way that the insects are paralyzed, but not killed. 
It has been commonly believed that the Digger-wasps could easily 
destroy their victims if they chose to do so ; but instead of doing 
so they sting them " just enough to paralyze them but not enough 
to kill them ; " for they know instinctively that on the one hand dead 
insects would not be suitable food for their young, and on the other, 
that if the insects with which the nest is provisioned are left unin- 
jured, the larva which hatches from the egg placed with them 
would be unable to overpower them. 
Some have held that the paralyzing of the prey is accomplished by 
making a slight sting in one of the ganglia of the ventral nervous 
system. This, however, implies an instinctively obtained knowledge 
of insect anatomy which is t* say the least remarkable. 
A. very different explanation of the phenomenon is now offered 
by M. G. Carh't.^ In an earlier note^ he showed that the wound 
inflicted by the Hymenoptera with a barbed sting (Bees and true 
Wasps) always resulted in a mixture of two liquids ; one, an acid, 
the other, an alkali, each secreted by a special gland. And he also 
showed that the venom produced the usual results only when it con- 
tained these two constituents. He has now studied the poison of 
Hynenoptera with a smooth sting (Philanthus, Pompihis, etc.), 
and finds that with these the alkaline gland either does not exist or 
is rudimentary. These are the Hymenoptera whose incomplete 
poison does not kill tl)e insects with which they provision their nests, 
for the purpose of feeding their larvas with living prey. In M. 
Carlet's opinion it is the presence of the two liquids or of one only 
which produces respectively the mortal poison or the anaesthetic, 
and not the asserted power to select the point of the body at which 
the Digger-wasp will sting its victim. 
Report of the State Entomologist of New York. — Dr. 
Lintner's Fourth Report has just appeared. It makes a volume of 
237 pages, and includes accounts of a large number of insects, some 
of which are described here for the first time. This report, like 
those that have preceded it, is the result of a great amount of pains- 
