5 



or prepared lands previously given to some cutworm crops, will harbor 

 numberless specimens of this and other species of cutworms. The idea 

 in control is to take advantage of the insects' fondness for some sub- 

 stance aside from the j^oung tobacco plants and destroy them by adding 

 to this substance a poison. Doctor Howard says: 



After the field is plowed and is bare of vegetation and ready for planting, if the 

 tobacco grower will thoroughly spray a patch of grass or weeds with Paris green and 

 water and will then cut it and drop it in little bunches here and there throughout 

 the tobacco field, he will find that the cutworms in the soil, in the absence of other 

 food, will eat this poisoned vegetation and will be destroyed, so that the tobacco 

 plants can be set out without fear of damage. 



Since the cutworms work at night, the vegetation thus treated 

 should not be cut until toward evening, so that it may be as fresh as 

 possible. 



Another poisoned bait is prepared by mixing Paris green or some 

 other arsenical poison with bran. Regarding its use against cutworms 

 in tobacco fields Quaintance says: 



This bait should be prepared by thoroughly mixing Paris green with bran at the 

 rate of 1 pound of Paris green to 50 or 75 pounds of bran. Just before a quantity is 

 to be used it should be moistened slightly with water sweetened with molasses. A 

 small ring of the poison should be strewn around each newly set plant, or a tea- 

 spoonful placed at two or three places. The cutworms seem to prefer this even to 

 tobacco, of which they are inordinately fond. Where seed beds are badly infested 

 with cutworms this poisoned bran should be drilled along in various parts of the 

 bed where it will be readily accessible to them. This poisoned mixture should be 

 renewed around the plants about every third day to keep it most appetizing for the 

 larvae. Care must be taken that it is not accessible to fowls or stock. 



Since the cutworms are so generally abundant in the islands and 

 the tobacco-feeding species, Agrotis ypsilon in particular, so destruc- 

 tive, it would be well to apply, as Howard recommends in the case of 

 the poisoned vegetation, the Paris green-bran mash mixture to the 

 prepared land several days before setting out the young plants. It 

 can be strewn broadcast over the entire field. 



THE TOBACCO FLEA-BEETLE. 



(Epitrix parvula Fab.) 



This widely distributed species is first recorded from Hawaii by 

 Doctor Sharp a from the islands of Oahu and Molokai on the poha, 

 PhysaMs peruviana. According to Mr. Schwarz, of the Bureau of 

 Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture, who kindly identified 

 the insect, the beetle was introduced into the Hawaiian Islands from 

 Central America. The writer has received specimens taken from 

 tobacco and has collected others from tomatoes. Other food plants 



a Fauna Hawaiiensis, Vol. II, Part III, p. 95, 1900. 



