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AN IMPORTANT PUBLICATION ON SPIDERS. 
Mr. Nathan Banks has just published in the Proceedings of the 
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, a paper entitled ‘The 
Spider Fauna of the Upper Cayuga Lake Basin,” in which he considers 
three hundred and sixty-three species and describes many new forms. 
The paper is illustrated by five plates of structural details. Judging 
from the comparative table of local lists of spiders the upper Cayuga 
Lake basin seems to be a particularly favorable region of country for 
these arthropods. 
AN ALEYRODES ON THE STRAWBERRY. 
Mr. H. Garman gives an accountin Agricultural Science (Vol. V. pp. 
264-5 of Aleyrodes vaporarium? Westw., a nearly cosmopolitan green- 
house pest, which he finds on the Strawberry on the grounds of the 
State College at Lexington, Ky. Toward fall the young scales are 
present in abundance on the under side of the leaves. The winged 
adults of the brood appear late in the fall, and, after leaving eggs for 
another generation, disappear. Young scales, which the writer believes 
hatched from the eggs deposited by the fall brood, are to be found on 
strawberry leaves in March of the next season. This scale is not con- 
fined to the Strawberry but attacks also the Tomato, and the same or a 
closely related species is found on the leaves of Abutilon avicenne. 
ABUNDANCE OF ATTAGENUS PICEUS IN ILLINOIS. 
One of our Illinois correspondents, Mrs. Horace French, of Elgin, 
Kane County, writes us under date of February 19, 1892, of the de- 
structive Carpet Beetle, Attagenus piceus O1. (megatoma Fab.), specimens 
of which she has sent us, in that locality. This beetle, for which there 
is no common name, is a member of the family Dermestide and a near 
relative of the so-called Buffalo Moth, or Buffalo Carpet Beetle. Pre- 
vious mention has been made of this species in INSECT LIFE, Vol. II 
(pp. 65, 66, and 170). According to our correspondent, many houses in 
Elgin are infested with the Buffalo Carpet Beetle, but little damage is 
done except during the warmer months, while the Attagenus seems to 
work constantly throughout the year, unmindful of change of tempera- 
ture. 
A Peoria housekeeper has had a similar annoying experience, being 
compelled to keep all articles of woolen, silk, or fur wearing apparel, 
not in constant use, tied up in strong paper bags. Mrs. French men- 
tions a dozen or more remedies which she had employed, but all with 
indifferent success. Her house was so completely overrun with the 
pests that after taking up carpets and discovering the full extent of 
their ravages, it was deemed unsafe to replace them. 
Benzine, in the form of a spray, if carefully and persistently applied 
to the walls and crevices of the floor, will eventually rid infested houses 
