December 21, 1893.
I wonder if you ever came across any observation of moths—i.e., their larvæ—injuring silk in the raw material, as they habitually do woollen goods. I did not know that they did, but this morning I had an inquiry about it from Tiverton, and amongst the moths sent as offenders was a lovely white cocoon, which appeared as if it might have been made of the same material as the beautifully fine silk manufactured web or net sent with it, and outside this cocoon, now empty, were a number of little pellets of pale larval excrement, as if they were the results of feeding on very pale material. I hope to hear more of this. Would it not be a nice new observation?
March 13, 1894.
Very many thanks for the copy of your charming Report kindly sent to myself, and the six so liberally also presented, which I am placing carefully where they will be appreciated and useful. One I sent to our Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society, to the pleasure of the President. They are doing a good deal of nice work, and were going to have a special exhibition of Silphidæ (Beet carrion beetles), with observations (fig. [26]). I like your Report very much; there is an immense amount of good, sound, straightforward information, both scientific and practical, in it, and it is quite an example of honest dealing with your body of observers. I have been very much interested in your Silpha notes, and I wonder whether we could get our farmers to try poisoning the cutworms, “surface caterpillars” as we call them here. I wonder whether I should not do well to follow your example and have short notes of anything interesting, even without giving a long story. These embody a great deal of useful information, but with us who are so behindhand in entomological information, I have been afraid that without a full account and a figure the readers would be all abroad. I was very much gratified to see the honourable place you give my name among your colleagues. Indeed this pleases me very much.
I was very much interested with what you told me of overplus of wasps having accompanied deficiency of rainfall in one portion of your part of the world. Our Press has been very kind to me, and I was particularly pleased with one remark, that (although retired from the Royal Agricultural Society) I had not ceased to be the “Consulting Entomologist of the Agriculturists of Great Britain.”
Just now I am running a leaflet on Bryobia prætiosa (Gooseberry red spider), through the press, and this morning I had an order for 3,000 copies! Just think of that, and without the firm even seeing it!
April 9, 1894.
I am trying to bring kerosene, or mineral oil emulsion more forward as an insecticide. I have given a number of the best recipes in one of our leading agricultural journals—“The Farmer’s Gazette,” Dublin—with the information that for those who cannot manage permanent combination of the constituents, the so-called “antipest” makes a good substitute.
It appears that “formalin,” as the trade name is called, is being brought out as a disinfectant. Mr. A. Zimmermann has been trying the effects as an insecticide on greenhouse plants, and he considered it so bad for the insects, and beneficial rather than hurtful to the plants, that he wanted my co-operation in getting it tried. Dr. Bernard Dyer told me he thought it would be well worth trial.
The point that occurred to me was could we use it against the Flour moth, E. kuhniella? At present we have got some flour well impregnated with emanation from some of the tablets, and Mr. Zimmermann was going to have a loaf baked of some of this flour, and consumed in his own large household, without letting them know there is anything peculiar about it! I am to know results; and I have said I should like a piece of the experimental loaf. I hope we shall not all be made very miserable indeed. If the flour rises properly, and the bread is fit to be eaten, then I am meditating getting an experiment made as to the destructive powers of the fumes by some of our folks here connected with milling, and also suggesting to Mons. J. Danysz, Director of the Laboratory of Parasitology, Bourse de Commerce, Paris, whether he might care to experiment in some of the French mills with which he had been in communication regarding destruction of E. kuhniella. The chemical is sold in tablets like large thick lozenges, and also as a fluid, and, I believe, in powder.