560 



THE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



bee so swiftly. They are very tenacious 

 of life, and will run readily off with a pin 

 stuck through the body. I have only 

 been able to catch them by striking them 

 when on the ground with a flat piece of 

 board. If knocked down with your hat 

 they will at once i-ise again. It is not too 

 much to say, I should judge, they will 

 carry away thousands of bees in a day 

 where there is an apiary of a dozen hives ; 

 in fact when the pirates " a})pear about 

 11 a.m. the work of the hives is simply 



stopped, and on a beautiful summer day, 

 when the bees should be out in their 

 thousands, you would see all work sud- 

 denly stopped, and not a bee on the wing 

 for several hours in the middle of the 

 day. The " pirate fly " leaves off its de- 

 structive operations about 3 p.m., and then 

 the bees start work again. Although not 

 of a vindictive nature myself, I had no 

 compunctions in killing these murdering 

 little pests whenever I could, but I found 

 them more than a match for me. 



First Report of the Government Entomologist, 



THE first report of the Government 

 Entomologist for the period of six- 

 teen months prior to the beginning of 

 this year is now published. 



The report contains information upon 

 the more important insect and fungus 

 pests of the Colony, and is published with 

 a view of supplying a handbook for the tise 

 of the farmers of the country. Additional 

 chapters are also written upon spraying 

 and fumigating fruit trees for insect pests. 

 Altogether there are 25 plates and a 



number of pen and ink sketches illustrat- 

 ing the various pestf^. 



Among the items dealt with in detail 

 mention may be made of the following : — 

 Forage Blight, Mealie Variegation, The 

 Witchweed, The Mealie Grub, Fruit 

 Moths and Beetles, Fruit Fly, Jigger Flea, 

 Plague Locust, Cockroaches, Aphides and 

 Scale Insects, Ticks, and Fungus Blights. 



Copies of the report will be supplied 

 free on application to the Department of 

 Agriculture, Maritzburg. 



Locusts and Birds. 



SAYS " Arator " in the Advertiser : — 

 " I notice the Agricultural Journal 

 records heavy swarms of locusts in the 

 City on the 12th iust., and these were 

 travelling south. Should we have rains 

 during the next fortnight it is probable 

 that wherever the locusts are now, there 

 *hey will stay and breed, but if high and 

 hot winds prevail they may collect again 

 on the Coast lands. 1 do not hear of 

 many Coast farms where there are many 

 locusts, and iso perhaps we may escape. 

 It is satisfactory to leai n from the Journal 

 that the locusts setai in the City were 

 suffering from the fungus disease. 



" I have heai'd niany complaints (says 

 'Arator' in reference to Mr. Allkin's 

 letter in the last issue of the Journal) of 

 the destructiveness of birds to the young 

 mealies this year. The fact is that the 



young loctists have given birds so much 

 food during the last few years that they 

 have increased enormously, and, pending 

 the hatching out of locusts, they must eat 

 something, and are now going for the 

 mealies. If locusts do not come down 

 this year there is no doubt that a crusade 

 will have to be waged against the in- 

 creased number of birds. If any reader 

 knows of a good preventive I would thank 

 him to let me know of it. 



" The higher the temperature of the cream at 

 churning, the poorer the quality of butter," is 

 coming to be an accepted principle of butter- 

 making. It is, therefore of no use for a man to 

 use a churn that can churn only at high tempera- 

 tures, like some of the whirlmind and cyclone 

 churns. Low temperatures for churning are the 

 only ones that should be recognised. 



