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nature of the damage occasioned by them, and the tracing out of the 
main facts in the life histories in a large number of cases. Information 
has been continuously supplied to officials and planters as to the natuiv 
of their insect pests and the more promising methods of treatment. 
Many experiments have been tried with a view to the adaptation of 
insecticides in use in other parts of the world to the requirements of 
special crops under cultivation in India. Fourteen numbers of the 
Indian Museum Notes, comprised in three volumes, have been pub- 
lished, and a number of special reports have also been sent out; one 
on the locust of northwest India and one entitled Handbook of the 
Silk Insects of India. Two preliminary lesson sheets for use in native 
schools have also been prepared by the office. A thorough investiga- 
tion of the insects affecting the tea plant is now in progress. The 
funds appropriated for the support of entomological investigation have 
varied from year to year; the only special grant for the purpose is one 
of 5,000 rupees per annum from the government of India. This is paid 
to the account of the Indian Museum, and forms a part of a general 
fund which is distributed at the discretion of the trustees, partly for 
the maintenance of the institution and partly for the support of the 
work carried on in various departments, one of which includes economic 
entomology. The work was at first looked upon in many quarters as 
a matter of comparative insignificance, but Mr. Cotes informs me that 
its importance is now very generally recognized and that strong repre- 
sentations are being made in influential quarters, urging the desira- 
bility of extending the scope of the work, and making it, like other 
branches of research, an integral portion of the Agricultural Depart- 
ment of the government. The work which has so far been done by Mr. 
Cotes and his assistants has been admirable, and we know of no more 
interesting publication upon entomology than the Indian Museum 
Notes. 
SOUTH AFRICA. 
The Agricultural Journal, the official organ of the Department of 
Agriculture of the Cape Colony, has been paying a great deal of atten- 
tion to economic entomology during the last four or five years. The 
so-called Australian bug (Icerya purchasi), the grape-vine Phylloxera, 
and the injurious locusts seemed to have roused the colonists to the 
necessity for more or less investigation, and the Agricultural Depart- 
ment has taken hold of the matter with some little energy. No dis- 
tinctively official entomologist, however, was ever appointed. Pri- 
vately Mr. S. D. Bairstow and one or two other colonists have made 
certain investigations, and their correspondence with Miss Ormerod, 
honorary consulting entomologist to the Royal Agricultural Society of 
Great Britain, resulted in the publication of Miss Ormerod's little book 
entitled Notes and Descriptions of a Few Injurious Farm and Fruit 
Insects of South Africa, with Descriptions and Identifications of the 
Insects by Oliver E. Jansen. Prior to the publication of this work 
