51 



A new Locality for Gossyparia ulmi,— Mr. C. H. Rowe, of Maiden, Mass., has 

 sent U8 specimens of this interesting imported European hark-louse which he found 

 upon the underside of the limbs of an elm tree at Brighton, Mass. It will he 

 recollected that Mr. Howard treated this insect in Vol. ii, pp. 34 to 41, and that it 

 has been previously found in Boston, New York, and Washington. 



Dr. Hulst's Collection of Lepidoptera. — We learn from Dr. Geo. D. Hulst that 

 he has donated his collection of Lepidoptera to Rutgers College. The collection is 

 reported to he very rich in Catocala, as we know it to be in the Geometrina and 

 Pyralidiua, two groups in which Dr. Hulst has more particularly worked and which 

 he retains for the present in Brooklyn. 



GENERAL NOTES. 



SUGAR-CANE PIN-BORER AND CANE DISEASE. 



We liave just received from Mr. J. M. Hart, F. l. s., of the Eoyal 

 Botanic Gardens of Trinidad, a stylograpliic circular on tlie sugar-cane 

 disease and its relation to the Pin-borer, Xylehorus perforcms Woll.,* 

 together with the following letter of transmittal. The circular is pub- 

 lished entire, as it is a matter concerning which we have had consider- 

 able to say of late in these pages. 



Royal Botanic Gardens, Trinidad, July l: 

 " " "* I have the honor to send you a few notes on our cane disease, which I 

 think perhaps will interest you. I was one of those on the original committee of 

 the agricultural board of Trinidad, who thought that the Xylehorus was altogether 

 to blame. Subsequent investigations under the microscope showed that the canes, 

 or most of them, were first subject to the attack of a microscopic fungus, and that 

 the attack of the beetle was subsequent to the attack of the fungus, until the num- 

 bers so increased that the insect had for very life's sake to feed upon the nearest 

 available food, i. e., healthy canes. I am one of those persons who, from many years 

 of experience in the cultivation of plants, have come to the conclusion that plants in 

 a weak state, from whatever cause, are liable to the attacks of insects more than 

 those in a healthy state, and that it is the weakness of the plant that invites the 

 insect attack. Plants, it is true, may be attacked when healthy and rendered un- 

 healthy, but the chances are that if in robust health they are well able to fight their 

 insect enemies, and to survive their attack or rather outgrow them. Insect attacks, 

 I believe, often spread and become epidemic in character among healthy plants, after 

 they have been introduced and allowed to increase in abnormal numbers on unhealthy 

 plants 



Our canes here have suffered from an alternation of dry and wet years, and as a 

 matter of fact, our sugar-planters never dream of an alternation, but plant cane, 

 generation after generation without change of even the variety cultivated or of the 

 stock with other estates. For long years this has answered, but, though brought up 

 by manures to a state of apjDarent "vegetative vigor," the canes are actually con- 

 stitutionally weak and liable to insect and fungus attack in unfavorable seasons. 

 The Xylehorus has appeared and is credited with the mischief, simply because the 

 first cause (fungus) was unsuspected and unknown and unseen. 



*In recent numbers (vol. iv, pp. 342 and 402) we published notes on what is prob- 

 ably the same insect, viz, X. indescens Zimm. In. our first note the species was, 

 through a clerical error, incorrectly referred to as ''X. piceus Zimm." — Eds. 



