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A NEW DEPARTMENT OF THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE. 
In our article on the rise and present status of official economic ento- 
mology, in the last number of Insect Life, we referred under the head 
of France to the establishment of the Laboratoire de Parasitologic de 
la Bourse de Commerce at Paris, and of an entomological department 
at the Institut Agronomique. We learn from Nature, of September 
13, 1894, that a new department of the Pasteur Institute has been more 
recently established, which has for its especial object the experimental 
study of means of defense against injurious insects. M. Metchnikoff 
is superintendent, with M. J. Danysz as his assistant. The objects are 
as follows: (1) The collection and cultivation of all of the pathogenic 
microbes of insects and animals destructive to crops, (2) the study of 
the conditions of development of these microbes in animals and on vari- 
ous media, (3) the direction of field experiments, and (4) the superin- 
tendence and control of practical applications of results of laboratory 
work. The best means of applying these results will be discussed by 
a committee, some of the membei s of which are MM. L. Brocchi, Costan- 
tin, Grandeau, Millardet, Sauvageot, Schribeaux, A. Giard, J. Kiinckel 
d'Herculais, A. Laboulbene, P. Marchal, and E. L. Eagonot. A bulletin 
will be published, as well as monographs of destructive insects and 
pathogenic bacteria, statistics concerning damage, and critical notes on 
ail publications referring to these matters. 
NITROGENOUS FOOD AND THE REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS. 
Mr. J. T. Cunningham, in Nature for September 27, 1894 (p. 523), 
referring to Weisinann's statement that the bee has the specific prop- 
erty of responding to imperfect nutrition in the larval state by an 
imperfect development of the ovaries, and that, as proof of this, blow- 
flies from maggots partially starved, but fed exclusively upon meat 
like those which were not starved, laid eggs in normal abundance, calls 
attention to the fact that the larva of the worker bee is supplied with 
a diet low in nitrogen, while that of tbe queen bee is supplied with one 
highly nitrogenous. Evidence is required that the larva of the blow- 
fly can fully develop its ovaries when deprived of nitrogenous food. 
He points out that Weismann himself, in one of his notes, shows that 
when blow-flies were fed upon carrots and sugar they laid no eggs for 
more than a month, but as soon as meat was supplied them sucked it 
greedily and laid great numbers of eggs the week afterwards. He 
further shows that in the case of Termites, Grassi has found that the 
fertile individuals are fed during development on the secretion of the 
salivary glands of other individuals, while sterile forms are supplied 
only with macerated wood dust. 
SOME SOUTH AUSTRALIAN MATTERS. 
The journal of the Agricultural Bureau of South Australia, published 
as an appendix to the Garden and Field for August, 1894, contains 
several items of interest to entomologists. It seems that the pear or 
