81 



correspondent in Virginia that at one time after exhausting a cabb 

 crop these bugs attacked bunches of late grapes and shoots of late coin, 

 gathering in numbers near the silk. — [F. II. CHITTENDEN. 



MEAL-WORMS IN SODA ASH. 



During October we received from Dr. John B. Porter, consulting 



chemist, of Glendale, Ohio, specimens of living larva- of the meal worm, 

 Tenebrio obscurus, in a box of soda ash. Our correspondent wrote that 

 they were found in a carload of this chemical, the crude sodium car- 

 bonate, from Syracuse, N. Y. They were noticed within 6 or <S indies 

 of the bottom and most numerous nearer the bottom, and especially at 

 the corners and edges. The men who handle this material make posi- 

 tive statement that they frequently find cars containing immense num- 

 bers of them, and that often they penetrate nearly 2 feet into the mass. 

 They also state that these larvae are only found in October, November, 

 and December, and further, that once they were found living in large 

 numbers in a bin which had been full of soda ash and tightly closed 

 for eight months. The car from which our specimens came contained 

 thousands of living and some few dead larva'. The only plausible 

 explanation of the presence of the meal-worms in the soda ash is that 

 the cars had previously been used in shipping quantities of meal, Hour, 

 grain, or similar material in which the insects had been breeding. 

 These larvas attain approximate growth toward the beginning of the 

 autumn, which will explain their having been found only from October 

 to December. It would be impossible for insects to feed on soda ash, 

 and the wonder is that the Tenebrio larvae are able to live at all in so 

 caustic a substance. 



AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND COCOIDJE. 



In a most interesting letter recently received from Mr. W. M. Maskell, 

 the New Zealand authority on scale insects, he gives us several inter- 

 esting bits of information, among others, that an entirely new enemy 

 to the peach has appeared in New South Wales, lie describes it as 

 Aonidiafusca, and states that in Sydney they are taking most drastic 

 measures to get rid of the insect, destroying the trees as tar as possible. 

 The San Jose scale (Aspidiotus perniciosus) has recently made its 

 appearance in Victoria. Hitherto it has been known only in New South 

 Wales. Dactylopim adonidum, the common mealy bug o( Europe, has, 

 in the last six months, broken out in an alarming way in the Unit Val- 

 ley, near Wellingto.i, New Zealand. During the summer and autumn 

 of 1894 it appeared in myriads on vines in greenhouses and on goose 

 berriesout of doors, much to the amazement of market gardeners. Mr. 

 Maskell has found another leerya from Australia which has no ovisac. 



Referring to our note in Insect Life(Vol. V, p. 282 in which we men- 

 tion on the authority of Mr. Alex, ("raw the introduction of Ctenochiton 

 perforatus and Dactylophis iceryoides into California, he states that he 

 8907— No. 7 



