I 



Yol. V, No. 2.] INSECT LIFE. [Issued November, 1892. 



SPECIAL NOTES. 



The Association of Economic Entomologists. — The larger J)ai't of the 

 present number is taken up with the Proceedings of the Sixth Meeting 

 of the Association of Economic Entomologists, held in connection with 

 the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, at Eochester, N. Y., August 15 and 16 last. These proceedings 

 are published in accordance with a resolutiou of the Association request- 

 ing their publication in Insect Life. The papers are mostly by station 

 entomologists and, with the discussions, will be found of much practical 

 and scientific interest. The Association is strong and successful^ and 

 has, we hope, a long and important life before it. 



Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales — Part 6, vol. Ill, of this pub- 

 lication, issued June, 1892, contains, under the head of Entomological 

 Notes, by A. Sidney OUifP, some account of the Cherry Tree Borer 

 {Cryptophasa unipuncta Don.) at Blackheath; the introduction of the 

 fig insect, Blastophaga psenes Linn., into Australia j and a walking- 

 stick insect destroying forest trees. Under the head of the introduction 

 of the Blastophaga, Mr. OUiff quotes a resolution by the Australian Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science, passed at theaneeting held at 

 Hobart in January, 1892, to the effect that the Association recommends 

 that steps be taken to introduce the Caprifig and the fig insect from 

 Smyrna. Mr. Olliff then quotes at length from the opinions of Mayer 

 and Solms-Laubach and from the account of Mr. Eisen of the efforts 

 to introduce Blastophaga psenes into California, recently published 

 in Insect Life. He states that both the Smyrna fig and the Caprifig 

 already grow in certain localities in New South Wales, and con- 

 cludes that it will be well to follow the example of California and in- 

 troduce the Blastophaga, as weU as to conduct experiments with the 

 native Austrahan fig insect, Pleistodontes imperialis Saund. For the 

 second time since our account of the damage done to forest trees in 

 northwestern New York by the ^' walking-stick," Biapheromera femo- 

 rata, in 1878, a species of this family has been reported as doing exten- 

 sive damage to vegetation. Mr. OUifPs notes give an account of the 

 extraordinary increase of Acrophylla tessellata in New South Wales. 



