PREFACE. 



The present bulletin is the fourth of the new series of this Division 

 containing- miscellaneous short articles and notes. Tbe article on the 

 two most abundant Pulvinarias on maple gives a summary account of 

 the life history and habits of, and remedies to be used against, the 

 common cottony maple scale, a species which occasionally does great 

 damage to shade trees in the Eastern United States and concerning 

 which the Division has had no printed matter for distribution for a 

 number of years, although a short account of the species was pub- 

 lished in the Annual Eeport of the Department for 1884. The second 

 part of this article brings together for the first time a full account of 

 the maple-leaf Pulvinaria, a species which, although it has been con- 

 sidered identical with the last-named form, was rehabilitated as a dis- 

 tinct species by the writer last year. The second article illustrates the 

 insects which, together with the newspapers, were responsible for the 

 remarkable so-called "kissing-bug scare" of the past summer, and it is 

 here published in response to an extraordinary demand for information 

 by correspondents as to the actual truth of the newspaper stories. 

 Reports on the destructive locusts in the West for the year 1899 are 

 at this time of unusual interest on account of undoubted flights of the 

 true Rocky Mountain locust, or "destructive grasshopper" (Melanoplus 

 spretus), in certain portions of the Northwest. Mr. Chittenden's arti- 

 cles on the bronze apple-tree weevil and the food plants and injury of 

 species of Agrilus are in continuation of his investigations on fruit and 

 garden insects and of an investigation begun in 1898 on the pernicious 

 bronze birch borer (Agrilus anxius), while his article on insects and 

 the weather is an interesting and suggestive consideration of the insect 

 conditions following the severe winter of 1898-99. Mr. Coquillett's two 

 articles and that of Mr. Hemenway will be of interest to florists and 

 greenhouse owners. The abstract of the paper by Dr. L. Reh on the 

 scale insects found on American fruit imported into Germany is a 

 summary of a somewhat extended series of observations, and is of 

 interest to exporters of American fruits as showing the importance of 

 sending abroad only perfectly clean fruit. The article by Mr. Felix G. 

 Havens is a careful account of the excelleut work done against inju- 

 rious insects by the County Horticultural Commissioners of Riverside 

 County, Cal., and is published for the information of officers in other 



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