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or branches on which they are located are cut out and burned, but if the scales are 

 quite numerous on the tree the trunk of the tree is marked with chalk, and the owner 

 ot the tree is notified to spray the tree. After the lapse of about two months the 

 trees which were marked are again carefully inspected, and if any live scales are 

 found on them are ordered sprayed ; and this warfare is kept up until the inspect- 

 ors are unable to find a single living scale. I was informed that all of those who 

 had been requested to spray their trees did so at once, everybody being anxious to 

 aid the inspectors in getting rid of the scales. As an illustration of what is being 

 accomplished in this direction I may mention a certain orange grove some twelve or 

 fourteen years old in which at the first inspection about forty trees were found to be 

 infested with scales, whereas at the last inspection scales were found on only six of 

 the trees. 



Such results as this are encouraging indeed, and indicate what well-directed efforts, 

 backed by public opinion, will accomplish. — [D. W. Coquillett, Los Angeles, Cal., 

 May 9, 1^90. 



The Larva of the Ox Bot-fly. 



Regarding Hypoderma hovis I shall read the account of the discovery of Dr. Cooper 

 Curtice with great attention. If I understand rightly you have not yeb developed 

 the imago, and the point is occurring 'to me whether it lies in the compass of possi- 

 bility that these larvae can belong to Cuterehra americana Fab. I scarcely like to 

 venture even to suggest this, for your personal knowledge of this genus will be prob- 

 ably just in inverse ratio to my ignorance, but looking at Brauer's descriptions and 

 figure oi generic type of larvce, the idea has entered my mind. 



I think I may safely say that the form of attack would be quite abnormal to H. 

 hovis in this country. As the point is of so much interest allow me to submit my rea- 

 sons to you from about six years' observations. I think that the larva penetrates from 

 the exterior to its location beneatti the hide, because I have found an excessively 

 minute channel leading down from the outside to where the minute larva lay below, 

 and when I squeezed the fragment, blood ran up this channel, but I did not see any 

 other passage from the torn and bloody hole in which the minute larva lay. Also I 

 found a channel partly down from the outside occupied at the lowest part by what 

 appeared to me certainly (though too much crushed for me to say it was so) to be a 

 larva. I have uniformly, so far as I can remember, found the H. bovis larvae with the 

 caudal extremity uppermost, and their extraordinary powers of self-inflation, and 

 non-power of rejection of contents to tangible extent at the time when in this country 

 they are forming the cell by pressure, seems to me to account for this part of the effects 

 of their presence. * * * — [Eleanor A. Ormerod, Torrington House, St. Albans, 

 England, March 10, 1890. 



Reply. — In reference to Dr. Curtice's discovery in relation to the Hypoderma, I have 

 little to say beyond what I stated editorially in Insect Life. There is no chance of 

 the larva which he refers to being a species of Cuterehra, but until it is reared we can 

 not say positively that it can not be another species of Hypoderma, though the chances 

 are all against this even. Dr. Curtice is going to make every effort to rear it, but 

 you can, from the very nature of the case, see how difficult, if not impossible, this is. 

 It is not only from my own observations, but because of your own careful researches, 

 as recorded, that I have felt so positive that the very normal habit of Hypoderma 

 hovis larva is to penetrate from the exterior of the skin of the animal, and the case 

 observed by Dr. Curtice is, in my judgment, exceptional. — [May 1,1890.] 



The Fuchsia Beetle. 



Will you be so kind as to answer a question for us concerning the Fuchsia Beetle ? 

 Would there likely be larva) of the insect in the ground in the spot where the beetle 

 was very troublesome last year on fuchsia, or does the great swarm that annually 

 makes its appearance come from some other locality ? 



