153 
have been unusually troublesome. This anomaly may find its explana- 
tion in the remarkable destruction of certain flies by a common Hmpusa 
disease. In a recent stroll through the grounds of the Agricultural 
Department the under side of the leaves of various trees was found to 
be quite thickly covered with dead flies, attached by a fungous growth. 
The abundance of the flies can be surmised from the fact that a single 
leaf not infrequently contained as many as eight or ten specimens. 
The flies, for the most part, belong to a common species, Pollenia rudis 
Fabr., which occurs abundantly in the late summer and fall on out-door 
vegetation, but include various smaller forms, some of which are proba- 
bly referable to the House Fly, and among others, the common species 
Lucilia cesar. I do not know that the occurrence of flies in such num- 
bers, destroyed by this disease on outdoor vegetation, has hitherto 
been recorded. Mr. W. T. Swingle has kindly examined the flies for 
me, and reports that the disease is not the common fungous disease 
of the House Fly (Hmpusa muscee), isolated cases of which are not un- 
common in houses during the late summer and early fall, but is one of 
R. Thaxter’s new species, viz, H. americana, which occurs as far as 
known always outdoors on vegetation, ete. 
The discovery of this great mortality among flies is interesting, in 
view of the economic importance which the subject of the diseases ot 
insects bids fair to assume in the near future, and would seem to indi- 
cate that the season has been especially favorable for the propagation 
of such diseases.—C. L. MARLATT. 
A FAVORABLE VIEW OF THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 
We have received from the author, Mons. P. Pélicot, honorary member 
of the Protective Societies of Paris and Brussels, a very interesting 
brochure entitled ‘“* Un Passereau a Protéger,” which is an attempt to 
rehabilitate the sparrow in public estimation. The work is popular in 
Style, and while we do not agree with the author’s conclusions, we can 
recommend the book as a most interesting contribution to a vexed ques- 
tion. In support of his argument that the sparrow is beneficial rather 
than harmful, he gives a table of the estimates made by several authors 
of the numbers of insects devoured by a sparrow in a given time. 
These approximations vary from that of Blatin, who gives ‘‘approximate 
estimates” that two sparrows will destroy 1,200 insects (Hannetons— 
chafers) in 12 days, to the estimate of Tschudi, who thinks that a single 
sparrow will destroy 1,500 larve in 24 hours. The author deprecates 
the slaughter of the sparrows by gun or poison, and gives as a sure pro- 
tection for fruit trees and garden crops the stringing of threads of red 
wool, or of any other striking color, on the branches of the trees, or on. 
small stakes close by the crop to be protected. This very simple device 
he claims to have tested himself and found it a perfect protection from 
the sparrows. It may be worth trying by those who believe that the 
