1884.] Entomology. 79 
riers, at the silk farm at Genito, has completed some experiments 
on the relative value of the two plants, which he details in the 
opening number of the S7/k-Grower’s Guide and Manufacturer's 
Gazette. Four varieties of worms were reared. The race known 
as the “ Var” was fed throughout on mulberry leaves. The “ Py- 
renean ” and “ Cevennes ” worms were fed throughout on leaves 
and branches of osage orange, while the “ Milanese ” worms were 
fed on Maclura up to the second molt and then changed to 
mulberry leaves. At the close examples of each variety of co- 
coons were sent to the secretary of the Silk Board at Lyons, and 
appraised by him. The Maclura-fed cocoons were rated at 85 c. 
per pound, those raised partly on osage and partly on mulberry 
at 95 c. per pound, and those fed entirely on mulberry at $1.11 
per pound. 
This, Mr. des Lauriers thinks, seems to show that the differ- 
ence between Maclura and Morus as silkworm food is some 
“twenty-five to thirty per cent in favor of the latter, while it is 
evident that the leaf of the osage orange can be used with some 
advantage during the first two ages of the worms, thus allowing 
the mulberry tree to grow more leafy for feeding during the last 
three ages.” The experiment, although interesting, is not con- 
clusive, from the simple fact that different races were used in the 
different tests and not the same races, so that the result may have 
been due, to a certain extent, to race aud not to food. 
Tue Cuincu-Buc IN New York StatTe.—Professor J. A. Lint- 
ner, State entomologist of New York, has been interviewed at 
length in the Albany Argus of Oct. roth on the subject of 
Chinch-bug injuries in Northern New York. It appears that its 
destructive work was first discovered in June, 1882, by Mr. H. 
King, of Hammond, St. Lawrence county, and that the de- 
Struction has increased the present year though confined to 
grasses, 
_ In this interview, in a communication to Science of Oct. 19th, 
and in a circular issued from the office of the State entomolo- 
gist, Oct. 18th, Mr. Lintner draws attention to the rarity of 
the chinch-bug in the State of New York heretofore ; to its per- 
sistent injury in St. Lawrence county notwithstanding the past 
wet season, and finds in these facts reason for the greatest alarm 
on the supposition that this manifestation is due to an invasion, 
and that the insect shows exceptional power of withstanding con- 
stant rains, which are well known to prove disastrous to it in the 
Mississippi valley. 
___ We have not been able to read over these accounts without 
feeling that an undue amount of alarm is felt. Since the chinch- 
ug was known to occur in New York at the time of Harris and 
Fitch, and is found further north both on the Atlantic seaboard 
and in the Northwest, we see no reason for considering that St. 
