480 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 11 
Scientific Notes 
A Suggestion for Tagging Trees. A note by Mr. F. C. Craighead in the June 
letter of the Bureau of Entomology on the use of the ordinary linen frank tag for 
labeling trees, leads me to suggest another form of tag that is good for this purpose. 
In marking fruit-trees in which wood-boring larvae are working it is sometimes 
necessary to use labels that will remain legible for five years or more. For this pur¬ 
pose I have found nothing equal to zinc tags marked with a soft lead pencil. Sheet 
zinc is cut into tags of the size required, the tags perforated and attached to the trees 
with copper wire. It is easy to write on the zinc with a soft lead pencil and the writ¬ 
ing lasts for a long while. I have tags of this kind that have been hanging on trees 
for fourteen years and the pencil markings on most of them are still distinct. 
Fred E. Brooks. 
Flies Associated with a Grasshopper Outbreak. Bombylhd flies were noticed 
in great abundance during the first two weeks of September, 1918, in parts of Lassen 
and Sierra Counties, California, where grasshoppers have been very plentiful for the 
last two years. A species of Anthrax, near Alpha, was especially noticeable in the 
vicinity of Loyalton and in these regions grasshoppers had not caused the injury 
that they had in other parts of Lassen County. In one alfalfa field the constant 
humming of the flies annoyed the horses so that cutting was considerably hindered, 
the flies evidently being mistaken for bees. In this same region a similar outbreak 
of Bombyflids, although a different species, was recorded by C. V. Riley in the 
“American Naturalist,” June, 1881. At this time, it is stated, an outbreak of grass¬ 
hoppers lasting three years was largely checked by the work of these flies in the 
larval stage on the grasshopper eggs. 
E. Ralph de Ong. 
Insect Pests of the Castor Bean. Castor beans, grown this year for the first time 
in quantities throughout the state of California, are being adopted as host plants by 
our common insects. Reports have come in from the northern part of the state of 
an unidentified cutworm attacking the young seedlings and in the south a species of 
Blapstinus caused serious damage by feeding on the stems of the young plants at the 
surface of the ground. This manner of attack by a species of Blapstinus is common 
in California on newly set tomatoes. In the overflow lands near Sacramento, the 
larva of Laphygma jlavimaculatus (Harv.), commonly known as the beet army worm, 
attacked the leaves of plants in the blooming stage. The young caterpillars fed be¬ 
neath a protecting web on the upper surface of the leaf, the attack usually beginning 
at the point of attachment to the stem. This was apparently the second brood of 
the year as moths bred from these caterpillars are ovipositing in September. 
E. Ralph de Ong. 
The Common Cricket, Gryllus assimilis, as a Cotton Seed Pest. Early in September 
the reporters were sent to a large plantation at Deeson in the Mississippi delta to 
investigate a serious outbreak of something, thought possibly to be the Pink Boll- 
worm, damaging cotton seed in the newly opened bolls. 
Nothing was found at work on the bolls during the day, but an investigation at 
night with the aid of electric flash-lights revealed the large black ground cricket, 
Gryllus assimilis Fab., variety luduosus Serv., determined by Mr. Wm. T. Davis, in 
the act of combing away the lint from the upper seeds in the newly opened bolls, 
cutting away the seed hull and eating out the contents. 
The particularly dry season in that section this summer and the consequent spars¬ 
ity of vegetation usually fed upon by the crickets may have driven them to this new 
food material. Crickets are also reported to be unusually abundant there this year. 
