84 



reason to suppose that the insect in question is recently introduced and 

 therefore confined to a restricted area or single point of infestation, as 

 seemed, indeed, to be the case in the first discovery of the San Jose 

 scale in the East. In such cases it may not be necessary to give pub- 

 licity to the point of infestation if proper measures are being taken to 

 suppress the insect. It was on this basis that he acted in the case of 

 the San Jose scale; but when an insect is known to be widely dissemi- 

 nated a full public statement of the extent of the infested locality is 

 desirable. 



Mr. Smith agreed with Mr. Riley as to the difficulty of inonouucing 

 any nursery untainted, and had decided for himself not to give clean 

 bills of health to any nurseries in future. 



Mr. South wick read a i)aper entitled " Economic entomological work 

 in the i^arks of l^ew York City." * 



Mr. Howard, referring to Mr. Southwick's remark that his men were 

 all too old to climb trees, said that the gypsy moth commission put 

 their men through a civil service examination as to their ability to 

 climb trees and look down from heigh cs without dizziness. He asked 

 if accurate information as to the distribution of Megastiziis speciosus 

 could be given by anyone present. 



Mr. Smith said that this wasp was abundant at New Brunswick the 

 present year. 



Mr. Webster presented the following comnninication: 



INSECTS OF THE YEAR IN OHIO. 



By F. M. Wehster, If'oosler, Ohio. 



The present year has been an extraordinary one in Ohio from an 

 entomological point of view. So far, since the opening of spring, one 

 outbreak has followed another in rapid succession, and between the big 

 guns, like cutworms, webworms, Hessian fly, and chinch bugs, have 

 come the usual number of novelties, which, however disgusting and 

 perplexing they may be to the tiller of the soil, are to the economic 

 entomologist zephyrs that break the dead, stifling calm of everyday 

 life. After one has spent nearly the whole day replj ing to a mass of 

 correspondence that does not cover beyond a half dozen of our most 

 common species, and has written the same recommendations a score or 

 more of times, he feels almost devoutly thankful to the man or woman 

 who sends in a new insect with a careful statement in regard to its 

 good or bad habits. 



Sometimes, while in a particularly cheerful frame of mind, we think 

 that we have gained a pretty full knowledge of an insect and can tell 

 Avith reasonable certainty what its condition will be a few months in 

 advance. The chances are, however, that ere those months have passed 

 we have about decided that were we to live to the age of Methuselah 



* Not furnished for publication. 



