AQ2  - 
GENERAL NOTES. 
ADDITIONAL NOTE ON THE SUGAR-CANE PIN-BORER. 
We have considerable additional correspondence relative to the dam- 
age now being done by Xyleborus pubescens to the sugar-cane crop in 
Barbados, Trinidad, and St. Vincent, as mentioned in our last num- 
ber. It seems that the insect was investigated to a certain extent by 
Mr. Herbert H. Smith in the Island of St. Vincent, and that Mr. T. D. 
A. Cockerell, of Jamaica, has also given some attention to the matter. 
Both of these gentlemen agree with us that the Xyleborus can not be 
the prime author of the damage to cane, the former considering that 
it only follows the attacks of the Larger Sugar-cane Borer (Diatrea 
saccharalis), while the latter thinks that it usually follows the work 
of a weevil (Sphenophorus sp.). This further correspondence has 
developed the interesting fact that the insect is by no means confined 
to the sugar cane, Mr. F. Carmody, the Government chemist at Port 
au Spain, writing us that it breeds in Mahogany, while Mr. H. Carac- 
ciolo, also of Port au Spain, has ascertained that the alarming increase 
of the insect is coincident with the recent and general change in the 
-method of disposing of the crushed cane—magass or bagasse. For- 
merly, he writes us, it was the custom of planters owning sugar mills to 
burn this refuse, whereas recently they hive begun to use it as manure. 
The scattering of quantities of this dead vegetable matter through the 
fields must afford a most appropriate nidus for the beetles, which doubt- 
less oviposit upon it very extensively. Their very numerous offspring, 
developing at the time when the bagasse has become too decomposed 
for further oviposition, will naturally take to such canes as are weak- 
ened by the attacks of the other insects mentioned, or even to healthy 
canes. The resumption of the old practice of burning this refuse will 
undoubtedly cause a decrease in the number of the insects. _ 
THE BLOOD TISSUE OF INSECTS. 
Dr. William Morton Wheeler, of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., 
has just completed a series of three articles entitled ‘Concerning the 
‘Blood tissue’ of the Insecta,” in Psyche. The first article appeared 
in February, 1892, the second in March, and the third in April. The 
subject is one which has been comparatively little studied, and Dr. 
Wheeler has had a practically new field. Under the head of blood 
tissue he includes the following structures: (1) the blood corpuscles; (2) 
the fatty body proper; (3) the pericardial fatty body; (4) the cenocytes; 
(these four structures have already been classified as blood tissues by 
Wielowiejski, and to them Dr. Wheeler adds the following:) (5) the 
garland-shaped cord of Muscid larve, and (6) a peculiar organ found 
in the embryos and young larve of Blatta and Xiphidium, called by 
Dr. Wheeler the subcesophageal body. The conclusions which he | 
