85 



ful sensation on a sore spot on his finger, almost like that produced by 

 a burn. 



During the last week of September two species of ants were noticed 

 devouring apples on trees, some of the fruit having been almost com- 

 pletely devoured and badly honeycombed at the time. 



October 6 Euphoria inda, the brown fruit-chafer, was observed 

 feeding upon some apples that had been injured by ants. 



UNUSUAL INJURY BY CUTTING ANTS IN TEXAS. 



One of our correspondents, Mr. H. Booton, of Richmond, Tex., 

 writes, under date of September 2, of very unusual injury by cutting 

 ants in that State. As his letter is of unusual interest, we copy it 

 entire: 



Replying to yours of the 20th of August, in regard to the night ants, as you desig- 

 nate them, it is the same ant 1 refer to. We call them the cutting ants. In the lot 

 next to me here in Richmond these ants undermined the wall to the city schoolhouse, 

 causing the wall to fall. This same nest of ants destroyed 1J acres of my orchard. 

 I have gone down 10 feet after these ants. The school and county authorities sent 

 to Galveston, Tex., for an architect to examine this house and give the cause of these 

 walls falling, for which they paid this man $50. I was present when this man exam- 

 ined these walls. He pronounced them good walls — a sound foundation — the second 

 best that can be made. He could not find the cause of the north wall falling. I 

 offered him my assistance, which he accepted, and in five minutes I satisfied him that 

 these ants had undermined this wall and were the cause of its falling. He so reported 

 it and said it was the first wall in all his experience he had known to be destroyed 

 by these cutting ants. I dug six holes, from 8 to 10 feet deep, in my yard for these 

 ants. I smoked them with sulphur, which ran them under this brick house. The 

 results I have stated. This nest of ants was destroyed or run away by the water 

 running from the gutters off this house onto this nest after the wall had fallen. I use 

 a buffalo blower to force the fumes of the sulphur into the holes of the ants. Bisul- 

 phide of carbon will not kill the cutting ants. It will kill the hill ants. These cut- 

 ting ants will carry London purple and Paris green from 100 to 200 yards. I know 

 of a well in this county which these ants destroyed by depositing London purple in 

 it, and this well was nearly 200 yards from where these ants were fed on the London 

 purple. I am the only man in this county who can kill these cutting ants. 



INJURIOUS MOTHS ATTRACTED TO LIGHTS IN AUTUMN. 



On the morning of September 23 the writer's attention was attracted 

 to numerous individuals of the cotton moth {Aletia argillacea Hbn.) in 

 the vicinity of electric-light globes in the business streets of Washing- 

 ton. The same species, together with the boll worm moth and other 

 Noctuidae, were noticed at lights during the same evening, and the 

 injurious forms predominated to such a degree that a tour was made 

 of all available electric-light globes of the vicinity. From the captures 

 an estimate was made and it was found that of the different species of 

 moths attracted to the lights up to 11.30 p. m. about 85 per cent were 

 injurious and the remainder innoxious. Other orders were conspicu- 

 ous by their scarcity. A few common species of beetles, such as Silpha 



