624 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 17 
control in Europe, and to select the most promising species for coloni¬ 
zation in the United States. The immediate task was to locate the chief 
alfalfa tracts in France and Italy and those which could be profitably 
investigated from the Hyeres, France, laboratory of the U. S. Bureau of 
Entomology. After locating these tracts, it was necessary to scout them 
sufficiently to determine those in which the weevil could be collected to 
advantage and later to select the tracts or individual fields in which 
parasites could be collected in numbers sufficient for study or exporta¬ 
tion. 
A survey of the southeast quarter of France, made in September, 1921, 
indicated that alfalfa is grown to a greater or less extent throughout most 
of this region. It is found along the Mediterranean coast from Marseilles 
to the Italian border, and along the Rhone Valley north to Lyons. 
Little pr no alfalfa is grown for some distance northeast of Lyons in the 
vicinity of the city of Bourg, but farther north near Lons-le-Saunier it is 
cultivated and from here some distance back into the hills almost up to 
Champagnole. Some alfalfa is grown between Poligny and Dijon, 
notably in the vicinity of the villages Mont-sur-Vaudrey and Villette- 
les-Dole. It is found also extending up most of the mountain valleys 
east of the Rhone, and is rather common near Annecy, Chambery, 
Gap, and Digne. 
In our experience, weevils were most plentiful in the Rhone Valley 
between Valence and St. Rambert, near Lons-le-Saunier, Chambery, 
Annecy, and Gap. There were several fields in or near Hyeres which 
contained a fair number of weevils. These were watched rather closely 
throughout the year. The regions in which the most parasites were found 
were the Rhone Valley in the section just mentioned, and the Lons-le- 
Saunier and Chambery sections. Many parasites were found in the 
Hyeres section, but this probably was due to the fact that more time was 
spent there than elsewhere in searching for them, and because in some 
cases favorable conditions were provided for their accumulation. 
Alfalfa tracts in Italy were fairly well known from the work of Fiske, 
Smith and Thompson. At that time parasites were more easily obtain¬ 
able in the vicinity of Naples, Milazzo, and in the Ternese Valley, and in 
view of this fact no extended explorations were made elsewhere in that 
country. In 1922 and 1923 most of the parasitized material came from 
Montecorvino, south of the Bay of Naples, and from Piedimonte d’Alife, 
a town about 40 kilometers north of Naples in a region said by Dr. 
Silvestri to be much given to the cultivation of alfalfa. 
