REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Sir: I have the honor to present herewith my annual report, together 

 with some account of the work done by the Bureau of Entomology. The 

 report contains articles on several of the insects that have attracted un- 

 usual attention during the year. The leading article is on the insects 

 injuriously affecting the Cabbage, being the continuation and comple- 

 tion of that in my last report on " Cabbage Worms." That article 

 treated of ten larvae which were more or less perfectly amenable to 

 similar remedial treatment, while the present article adds twenty-one 

 other insects belonging to five Orders and requiring different treatment. 

 Thus there are thirty-one species known to be quite destructive to 

 Cabbage, and this list does not include several other species occa- 

 sionally found upon leaf and root, but not specially injurious. It is 

 interesting to note the correspondence, as set forth in the report, 

 between the insects which attack the plant in America and Europe, for 

 there are at least nine species common to both countries, while six 

 others have generic representatives that work in a similar manner and 

 that are in some instances so closely allied, specifically, as to be scarcely 

 distinguishable. Most, if not all, of those which are identical have been 

 imported to America from the trans-Atlantic. 



In this connection it affords me pleasure to announce the successful 

 introduction of one of the most common and useful of the parasites of 

 cabbage worms in Europe, viz., Apanteles glomeratus 7 the facts in refer- 

 ence to which are recorded in the report. 



I have reproduced some remarks made at the annual meeting of the 

 Georgia State Agricultural Society last February on u General Truths in 

 applied Entomology," believing them to be sufficiently germane, and 

 have given some words of caution and advice as to the use of petroleum 

 or kerosene emulsions. Since I first advocated their use in the reports 

 from this Bureau, and since Mr. Hubbard found them, in experience, to 

 transcend in value all other insecticides against scale-insects and other 

 insects injurious to the Orange, these kerosene emulsions have been very 

 generally tried and have had more prominent place than any other in- 

 secticide in the columns of the agricultural and horticultural journals 

 of the country and in the reports of directors of different agricultural 

 experiment stations. The literature of the subject shows that the 

 proper methods of making and using them are so often imperfectly un- 

 derstood that I have deemed the reiteration of the essential facts nec- 

 essary. 



The year, on account of the severe winter, the exceptionally wet and 

 cool early summer, and the protracted drought later, has been what in- 

 sect collectors call a bad year, i. e., most insects have been scarce; yet 

 it has been marked by the appearance of a few in exceptionally injurious 

 numbers, and some of these, like the Buffalo-gnat, the Streaked cotton- 

 wood leaf- beetle, and the Cottony niaple-scale, are treated of in the report 



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