174 ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS. 



effects, but the farmers think them always the better for a little 

 locust jDoison. arsenic being a much-used drug in farm veterinary 

 work. 



Let me say definitely that I never use the locust fungus. I say 

 unhesitatingly that, if the unknown conditions suitable to its devel- 

 opment arise, it breaks out — in the ordinary acceptance of the term — 

 spontaneously. Further. I feel certain that if those conditions were 

 to prevail for from four to six weeks during the summer we would 

 have no work to do until the following season. 



The use of Paris green for locusts is not practicable ; contact insec- 

 ticides, i. e.. soap solutions and kerosene emulsion, are occasionally 

 employed for the insects in the first larval stage, but in practice the 

 same results are never obtained as with the arsenic solution. 



Begasse baits are still largely used in the cane fields, but nowaday- 

 many planters leave the trash on the older leaves and spray that. In 

 many cases, however, advantage is taken of the habit displayed by 

 the young locusts of leaving the cane lands to moult in the grass of 

 the headlands or veld in their proximity. 



I have not listed the plants which these locusts do not attack, but 

 it is curious to note that while they feed readily on the foliage of the 

 orange, they never touch that of the mandarin orange. Tea planta- 

 tions are also exempt from them. 



DOES THE SILVER-EISH (LEPISMA SACCHARINA L.) PEED ON 

 STARCH AND SUGAR? 



By H. Gasman. Lexington, Ky. 



In all the accounts of the food habits of the silver-fish with which I 

 am familiar no doubt is expressed as to the food being starch, sugar, 

 or both. Observations made by the writer a few years ago convinced 

 him that the silver-fish common in dwellings in Kentucky, and pre- 

 sumably the same as that found everywhere in the country, feeds 

 freely upon substances of animal origin. 



My attention was first drawn to the habit by the scored condition of 

 some velox photographic prints hanging on a wall in a dwelling, the 

 film having been removed in irregular patches (see fig. 10) while the 

 starch used in mounting them remained untouched. The injury was 

 traced to silver-fish. They were found to be exceptionally common 

 about a shingled balcony opening into the room. Itwas decided to set 

 a bait for them, and with the statements of writers as to their fondness 

 for starch and sugar in mind these substances were at first used. But 

 the insects paid not the slightest attention to them in any condition in 

 which they were employed, moist or dry. I was surprised at this, 

 but in the course of my experiments noticed that killed or disabled 

 silver-fish were fed upon by the others, often three or four gathering 



