INSECT PESTS IN VICTORIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 20

INSECT PESTS IN VICTORIA.

A VALUABLE DEPARTMENTAL HANDBOOK. A most valuable publication is to hand from Mr O French, the Victorian Government '^ntomologtet, who has just issued £ book form Part 4 of the handbook Destructive Insects in Victoria, and ha« thus set an -example which might be tollowed with advantage by the Now Zealand Government. The volume contain* an instructive collection of coloured plates, and with their assistance and the accompanying letterpress, mature students, farmers, or<^^dists, and- "©thews should . -have no difficulty in identifying the insects that are destructive and liable to prove a menace. The life history of each us given in clear and simple terms which cannot well be misunderstood.' The insects dealt with in the publication are:— Fruit-flies, wattle scale, apple tree destroyer, Huebner s case-moth, common bean-butterfly, holy bug, dark spotted -swift moth, green hanging motn of the apple, elephant beetle, orange and fig tree boreT, steel-blue she-oak borer, Master's gum borer, dark-green g>ra*s caterpillar, apple .gum bimia, lesser wood case moth, Pinara- grub of the apple, pumpkin beetle, red gum tree weevil, boT-fly, mottled cup moths. But Mr Fremoh has not stopped with a description and life history of pests. He has also given instructions ~nß to the best means to adopt for their eradication. Mr French has devoted portion of the handbook to the Victorian lairds that feed on insects amd are therefore the friends of the cultivator, whether He be a farmer or fruitgrower or both. Here the illustrations and detailed information will prove valuable. a.nd the book might well be placed in the hands of all school children. The insectiverous birds of Victoria are : — Masked wood swallow, babbler or codlin-moth bird, nankeen kestrel. m?«pie lark, awlet nigrh-t-jar, white-throated thickhead, flame-breasted robin, red-capped robim haranon ; ou3 shrikethrush, welcome- swallow, yellow-rumped tomtit, Australian bee-eater, superb warbler lor blue-wrein. white-browed bableT or ood-lin-moth bird. It may be added that 'copies of the handbook -aire ob tain-able from the Victorian Secretary of Agriculture, Melbourne, the price being 2s 6d.