324 



cement and the consistence of tallow. The product is difficult to in- 

 flame, but when lighted burns slowly and without smoke, developing a 

 high temperature, and leaving only 2 per cent, of a hard black residuum. 



. — [Engineering^ Jnly 27, 1888. 



NEW FOOD-PLANT FOR THE SCURFY BARK-LOUSE. 



Mr. John R. Matlack, of Fort Washington, Pa., sent us specimens of 

 currant twigs of the "cherry-currant variety "completely covered with 

 female scales of Chionaspis furfiirus Fitch. He also wrote that all 

 the branches were covered in a similar way. This appearance of this 

 scale upon Currant was to be expected, but was not previously recorded. 

 The food-plants previously known are as follows: Apple, Pear, Choke- 

 cherry, Crabapple, European Mountain Ash, and Black Cherry. 



OBITUARY. 



We are much pained to learn of the death of Samuel Lowell Elliott, 

 Ph. D., which occurred at his residence in Brooklyn February 12. Dr. 

 Elliott was forty-five years of age at the time of his death and had for a 

 long time been well known as a careful student of the habits of insects, 

 and was a remarkably ingenious man in the way of contriving success- 

 ful methods of rearing and studying living insects. He was born in 

 Plattsburgh,N. Y., and was the only son of Dr. W. H. Elliott, of that 

 village. He was a member of a number of scientific societies, among 

 others the Entomological Society of Washington. 



PRECURSORS OF BROOD VIII OF THE PERIODICAL CICADA. 



Prof. William A. Buckhout informs us, under date of February 23, 

 that three adult Cicadas appeared in his greenhouse during the last 

 week. The greenhouse was built about eighteen months ago and its 

 site was formerly covered by an irregular growth of nursery- stock. 



A SPIDER-EGG PARASITE. 



Mr. Henry C. Wells, of Short Hills, ^. J., sends us, February 24, a 

 cocoon of the common Argiope riparia from which had issued three 

 temale specimens of the Ichneumon, P/?«^j/rt inquisitor^ which we had 

 previously bred from a number of L( pidoi)terous larv?e. The Argiope 

 cocoon was full of the cocoons of the parasite. As many as twenty 

 could be plainly counted. They were about 10 millimeters long by 3 

 millimeters in diameter, and were composed of rather loose pure white 

 silk, closely covered with the loose reddish-brown silk of the spider. 

 The spider eggs had been entirely consumed and only slight traces of 

 them remained. '^ 



SPRAYING FRUIT TREES. 



The testimony of experimenters is not entirely in favor of this rem- 

 edy. Mr. W. A. Smith, of Berrien County, Michigan, reports in Popular 



