GENERAL NOTES. 



A LEAF-MINER OF TOBACCO. 1 



We have been in correspondence with Mr. Gerald McCarthy, of the 

 North Carolina station, in regard to a leaf-miner in the tobacco fields 

 of that State which may be a somewhat serions enemy to this impor- 

 tant crop. From specimens of the larvae received from Mr. McCarthy 

 we were enabled to rear the moth, which has been determined for us by 

 Miss Murtfeldt as Gelechia piscipelUs Zell. This determination reveals, 

 what we had from the first suspected, that the occurrence of the leaf 

 miner in tobacco was simply an instance of change of habit, more or 

 less accidental, and perhaps not permanent. We do not understand 

 that the damage is widespread, but, on the contrary, that it is restricted 

 to a single locality. Just as the plowing up of rank-growing sod land 

 and planting it to corn frequently results in a serious attack upon 

 the corn by root webworms, billbugs, and other insects, and just as 

 the plowing up of a field overrun by pigweed has resulted in an attack 

 upon the ensuing crop of sugar beets by the sugar-beet web worm, so 

 the planting to tobacco of a field in which the horse nettle had been 

 abundant would be quite likely to result in the transference of the atten- 

 ions of the horse-nettle leaf-miners to the leaves of tobacco. Such cases 

 are not apt to recur except under exactly similar conditions. 



A GALL-MAKING COCCID IN AMERICA. 



In Science for September 4, 1896 (Vol. IT, No. 88, pp. 299-300), 

 Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell describes Olliffiella (n. gen.) cristicola n. sp. 

 from specimens producing galls on Quercus wrigMii, at Pinos Altos, 

 N. Mex., collected July 8, 1896. The genus belongs to the Idiococcinae, 

 a group of sixteen known species, all confined to Australia, except one 

 in the Sandwich Islands, one in Japan, and the present species. 



The publication of this note reminds us that specimens of this same 

 insect were sent to the Department of Agriculture as long ago as May 

 18, 1882, and that a figure was prepared of the gall by the late Dr. 

 George Marx, at the instance of Dr. Riley. The figure has never been 

 published, and is printed herewith (fig. 44). The notes made by Mr. 

 Pergande on its receipt were as follows : 



Received May 18, 1882, from H. K. Morrison, Fort Grant, Ariz., some galls on 

 leaves of oak, which are produced by a brachyscelid coccid. This is the first species 



] For bibliographical purposes it should be stated that all unsigned notes may be 

 credited to L. O. Howard. 

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