34 



"where the ground was a little broken by small hollows. They were very 

 numerous in this vicinity that season, and occasionally there have been 

 a few of them since, but not doing much damage until the present sea- 

 son. In one field of mine, which had been pastural two years before 

 breaking, they have almost entirely taken up 4 or 5 acres, so that I have 

 planted a part of it with white beans, and contemplate sowing the bal- 

 ance with buckwheat. 



"I think they are produced by a small, whitish miller, with dirty, 

 brownish stripes upon it, as I have seen a great many of them about 

 the fields. They made their appearance about the time the worms com- 

 menced their depredations. I also saw a great many about on the first 

 visitation of the 'web-worms,' and supposed at the time that they were 

 the authors of the mischief." * * * [B. F. Ferris, Sumnan. Ind. 9 

 July 4, 1885. 



MONEPHORA BICINCTA DAMAGING BERMUDA GRASS. [Plate I, fig. 



6.] — This rather striking-looking bug, belonging to the family Cercopida?, 

 and easily recognizable from its marked coloration, is widely distributed 

 and by no means rare over the more southern portion of the country, but 

 has never been reported as injuring cultivated plants. This season, how- 

 ever, a largv number of specimens were received from Hon. A, P. But- 

 ler, Commissioner of Agriculture of the State of South Carolina, dated 

 Columbia, October 20, in which he stated that they appeared in 1884 

 on the farm of Mr. Speigner, on the Congaree Biver, near Columbia, 

 and destroyed a small patch of Bermuda grass. This year it again ap- 

 geared in large numbers on the same farm, and completely ruined a 

 10-acre field of the same grass. Major Butler examined the field in 

 person, and states that it looked as if a fire had passed over it, while 

 thousands of the bugs were found. This exceptional increase of the 

 insect is of considerable interest. The best remedy will be found in 

 burning over the field in the fall. 



A new Enemy to the Persimmon. — Mr. C. W. Johnson, of Saint 



-Augustine, Fla., wrote us, June 23, concerning the work of an insect 



which punctured twigs of Persimmon and layed its eggs, from which 



the larvas hatched and bored into the heart wood. The specimens were 



recognized as Oberea bimaculata, a beetle which customarily lays its i 



■■■eggs in Raspberry or Blackberry, but which we have also observed to 



oviposit in Cottonwood. It has never before been recorded as injuring 



Persimmon. Oberea schaumii, a closely related species, we have also 



observed on Cottonwood, and Mr. Schwarz has found it ovipositing in 



Sassafras. 



The Black Scale of California (Lecanium olece Bernard). — This 

 destructive scale was treated of in the Annual Report of the Depart- |. 

 ment for 1880, pp. 336-337, but little beyond structural details was given 

 We have received the past season a few notes concerning it from Mr. 



