84 
Plant lice obtained by sweeping fields of clover were similarly 
treated May 25 and enclosed on clover plants within a glass- 
cylinder, open at the top. June 1 some of the plant lice seemed 
weak and wandered from their food, and two days later all were 
dead and covered with the fungus. In the check lot, meantime, 
a few had died, but none developed the fungus either then or 
thereafter. Most, however, Avere alive. 
Ten larvae of saw flies and of Lepidoptera, taken in sweeping, 
were placed May 22 under a bell glass with grass and clover 
and Avell dusted with spores from the Tliaxter culture tube. On 
the 25tli of May the Sporotrichum had begun to show on two 
of the larvae. May 27 several more were dead with the develop¬ 
ment of spores, and by June 4 all had similarly perished. 
June 1, eight Cecropia moths were dusted with Sporotrichum 
spores and placed in a breeding cage over damp earth. Two 
davs later two of the moths were dead, and June 8 all had 
died; but it Avas not until the 12th that the spores appeared 
externally. 
It seems clear from the foregoing that Sporotrichum globu- 
Jiferum is an entomogenous fungus capable of attacking 
healthy insects in great variety, young and old, that it may 
take first effect in about tAvo days, but that mature spores will 
be nine or ten days in forming. Experiments not here reported 
have satisfied me that although the fungus may be successfully 
transferred to culture media in any stage, the complete matu¬ 
rity of the spores is probably necessary to the infection of living 
insects. It may be readily grown by the methods of sterile cul¬ 
ture on agar or on almost any substance soaked with sterilized 
beef broth, and cultures so produced may be used to infect in¬ 
sects. On the other hand, this seems not to be a very virulent 
insect parasite, and I am not as yet at all certain that it will 
be found especially useful to the economic entomologist except 
Avliere both meteorological and entomological conditions unite 
to favor its growth and rapid spread. 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
1888. 
Forbes, S. A.—Note on Chinch-Bug Diseases (Psyche, v. 5, Sept.-Oct. r 
1888, p. 110.) 
Announces discovery of new disease of chinch hug in addition to two 
already known, the first due to a Botrytis, the two others to an Ento- 
mophthora and a Micrococcus respectively. The latter develops in alimen¬ 
tary canal, and especially in its coecal appendages, which are often liter¬ 
ally crammed with it from end to end. Disease comparable with schlaff- 
sucht or flacherie of the silkworm. Its microbe freely cultivable in both 
liquid and solid media. The Botrytis [Sporotrichum] much more destruc¬ 
tive in Illinois than the Entomophthora, but seemingly less .so than the 
bacterial disease. All these diseases occur spontaneously over a large area, 
and the author believes it likely that they will soon suppress “the longest- 
