PUBLICA nONS
RECEIVED
THE PLUSIINAE (LEPIDOPTERA:NOCTUIDAE)OF AMERICA
NORTH OF MEXICO,EMPHASIZINGGENITALICAND LARVALMORPHOLOGY,
by Thomas D. Eichlin and Hugh B.
Cunningham. Tech. Bull. no. 1567, USDA.
A BIOLOGYOF LOCUSTS,by R. F. Chapman. The Institute
of Biology's Studies in Biology no. 71. Edward Arnold
(Publishers)
Ltd., 25 Hill St., London, WIX8LL.
A COMPENDIUMOF THE BIOGRAPHICALLITERATUREON
DECEASEDENTOMOLOGISTS,
by Pamela Gilbert. British
Museum (Natural History) London, Richard Clay and
Co., Ltd.
THE DRAGONFLIESOF BRITISH COLUMBIA,by Robert A.
Cannings and Kathleen M. Stuart. British Columbia
Provincial Museum, Victoria, B.C. V8V lX4. $2.00.
THE RICE BROWN PLANTHOPPER,compiled by Food and
Fertilizer Technology Center for the Asian and Pacific
Region. Agric. Bldg., 14 Wen Chow St., Taipei, Taiwan, Rep. of China. $2.50 airmail.
STANOARDNAMES FOR COMMON INSECTS OF NEW ZEALAND, bulletin no. 4. Entomological Society of New
Zealand (Inc.), Entomology Div., DSIR Private Bag-,
Auckland. $2.00.
INTRODUCTION
TO HERPETOLOGY,
3rd ed., by C. ]. Goin,
O. B. Gain, and G. Zug. W. H. Freeman and Co.,
660 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94104. $15.95.
TRAINING MANUAL FORANALYTICALENTOMOLOGY
IN THE
FOOD INDUSTRY, FDA tech. bulletin no. 2, ed. by
J. Richard Gorham.
FDA, Public Health Service,
USDHEW,
Washington, DC 20204.
THE LEAFHOPPERS OF KENTUCKY Pt. 1: Agalliinae,
Idiocerinae, and Macropsinae, by Paul H. Freytag.
Progress Report 223, Univ. of Kentucky, College of
Agric., Agric. Exp. Stn., Dept. of Entomology, Lexington, KY.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Research Division Bulletins
No. 127: Studies on the Morphology and Systematics
of Scale Insects. No.9.
Proceedings of the SympoONE HUNDREDTWENTY YEARS OF RESEARCHON COTTON
sium: Recent Advances in the Study of the Scale InINSECTSIN THE UNITED STATES,by C. R. Parencia, Jr.
sects. The XV Int. Congo of Entomol., Wash., DC.
Agriculture
Handbook no. 515, USDA.
US Gov't.
Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402.
No. 128: Studies on the Morphology and Systematics
of Scale Insects. No. 10. Morphology and Systematics
ORDNUNGCOLEOPTERA
(LARVEN), by Bernhard Klausnitof the Adult Females of the Genus CcrococClIs.
by
zero Dr. W. Junk b.v. Publishers, The Hague, The
Paris L. Lambdin and Michael Kosztarab. VPI&SU,
Netherlands, P.O. Box 3713. $73.00.
Dept. of Entomology, Blacksburg, VA 24061.
PACIFIC INSECTS MONOGRAPH33, DIE TENEBRIONIDEN Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agricolas, SAG,
DES PAPUANISCHENGEBIETES1. STRONGYLIINI,by Von
Folleto de Divulgacion no. 51, Guia de Recomendaciones
Z. KASZAB. Dept. of Entomology, Bishop Museum,
para el Control de Plagas Agricolas en Mexico, 1976.
Honolulu, HI 96818. $10.50.
No. 57, Plagas del Sorgo su Control en Mexico. No.
58, Plagas del Maiz en Mexico. No. 67, Plagas del
PATHOGENSOF MEDICALLYIMPORTANTARTHROPODS,ed.
Algodonero en Mexico. No. 68, Plagas de los Granos
by Donald W. Roberts and Mary Ann Strand. Suppl.
Almacenados y su Control. No. 69, Control de Plagas
no. 1 to vol. 55 of Bull. WHO. 49 Sheridan Ave., Aldel Frijol en Mexico. No. 70, Plagas de la Soya y su
bany, NY 12210.
Control en Mexico.
BOOK REVIEWS
INSECTS OF ORNAMENTALPLANTS by M. Curtis Wilson,
Donald L. Schuder, and Arwin V. Provonsha.
1971.
Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, 111., 134 pp. $5.50.
With the growing awareness of how plants help preserve environmental quality and the increasing popularity
of ornamental plants, it is appropriate to have a means of
introducing students to concepts of pest management on
ornamentals.
M. C. Wilson, D. L. Schuder, and A. V.
Provonsha of Purdue University have partially fulfilled
this need by giving us Insects of Ornamental Plants. The
volume is what the authors claim it to be-a
student
manual intended to supplement either lecture or laboratory work rather than a text or reference book of biological information on pests associated with ornamentals.
As part 4 of the series Practical Insect Pest Management, the authors have attempted to bring together "the
most advanced concepts ... being used or tested in ornamental plant protection today." They have partially succeeded in reviewing current research. The possibility of
releasing parasitic wasps to help suppress whitefly populations on greenhouse crops is mentioned; omitted, however, are the use of pheromones to monitor £light periods
of certain lepidopterous pests and phenological data to
obtain better timing of pesticide applications.
Chapter
1 is an introduction
that reviews the current
219
popularity of ornamental plants and discusses why growing trees and shrubs in urban ecosystems promotes certain pest problems and why concepts of pest management
applied to fruit, vegetable, or agronomic crops are not
usually applicable to ornamentals. Wilson et al. point out
that large numbers of insects on a plant do not always
signal a need for pesticides. An accurate diagnosis may
show that the insect in question is merely a nuisance species that poses no threat to the plant, or if it is a pest,
that its natural enemies may be sufficiently numerous to
prevent injury to the crop. This explanation somewhat
softens the language used in the foreword. There we
were told that with plants grown for their aesthetic qualities "there is no tolerance level" and that to prevent damage a grower usually must resort to "prescription entomology, or preventive applications of chemicals." These
are rather outmoded and disturbing thoughts to present
to students in a time of concern over any injudicious use
of pesticides. Eventually, we must accept some role in
educating the public to be content with a less-than-perfeet product. We should point out that several state agriculture departments are beginning to question the "zero
tolerances" for pests of ornamentals that traditionally
have been enforced by nursery inspectors. On a provisional basis, our own department has been employing a
system of tolerances, particularly for plants being shipped
intrastate, based on a pest's distribution and potential
220
ESA BULLETIN
threat to its host, and the ease and availability of control
measures.
In Chapter 2 an overview is given of arthropod pests
on ornamentals based on their biology and food habits:
aphids, scale insects and mealybugs, hoppers, cicadas, and
plant bugs; mites; borers; leaf-feeding caterpillars and
beetles; weevils; bark beetles; and leafminers. Arthropodinduced galls are examined in Chapter 3 and insect vectors of plant diseases, in Chapter 4. The remaining chapters treat pests of pines (Chapter S), turf (6), greenhouses and house plants (7), and the flower garden (8).
Students should appreciate the ample space provided
for making notes. The large number of illustrations borrowed from various sources are generally adequate (those
of Nantucket pine tip moth on p. 93 are exceptions).
In
some, however, the scientific name used in the original
source is now outdated and has not been corrected (e.g.,
spruce spider mite is listed in the genus Paratetranychus)
and in others, the common name does not agree with that
used in the species write-ups (e.g., gipsy/gypsy moth,
bag-worm/bagworm).
In the caption for the illustration
of a fall webworm larva and pupa, the plural forms larvae and pupae are used. As the authors state, more
original drawings had to be prepared than was the case
with other manuals in their series. Arwin Provonsha's
drawings, as always, are excellent.
Owing to the diversity of the arthropod fauna associated with ornamentals, the authors include detailed information only on selected pests. An entire page is devoted
to most species discussed in detail. Typically, data are
presented in S or 6 categories: description and seasonal
development, damage, importance, distribution, host plants,
and control. For some pests, data are either supplied or
omitted for all categories; for others, information is provided in only one or a few categories, and in only 2 of
28 maps is distribution of a pest indicated. Students probably will fill in missing data from material presented in
lecture, but the reader should have been alerted in the
foreword to expect omissions under the various headings.
Much biological information and illustrations are presented in tables for additional species.
Scientific names are omitted in nearly all species writeups, an approach some students might favor. If all common names used had been those approved by the Entomological Society of America, or used consistently, there
would have been little room for confusion. Hyphenation
is inconsistent in many of the common names, and the use
of common and scientific names for families would have
been helpful.
The authors have assembled useful data into several
tables without giving a source for their information. For
example, the list of insect-resistant ornamental plant species (p. 4) probably was compiled from the literature,
but the rating of honeylocust clones for their relative resistance to mimosa webworm (p. 41) might be based on
original work by the authors. For those wishing to consult original references, sources might well have been
mentioned also for data used to compile the number of
gall-making species associated with different groups of
plants (p. 64) and the distribution of gall makers by
insect order (p. 6S).
Too often the text is composed of irritatingly choppy
sentences in succession; wordiness is common (e.g., "black
in color," "oval in shape," "inexpensive in cost," "spotted
with black spots of excrement").
Some sentences clearly
need to be recast: "Currently used in vegetable production greenhouses, they studied this parasite as a control
agent .... " We could tolerate more easily the frequency
of typographical errors if loose editing had not allowed so
many other annoying errors in mechanics. Misspellings
are common; azalia, becomming, cemetary, compliment
(for .complement), dependant, independant, innoculated,
practlOner, sack (for sac), stolens (for stolons), whirls
(for whorls), wooly. The use of commas sometimes
merely reflects personal preference, and the style an au-
Vol. 24, no. 2 1978
thor employs rarely irritates the reader. In this volume,
however, commas often have been omitted from long introductory phrases and subordinate clauses and in situations where they are needed for clarity, and are used
where they are least expected. Commas and periods are
consistently misplaced in relation to quotation marks and
in one case a word of a single syllable is broken at the
end of a line. In at least four sentences subject does not
agree with verb, and there is one run-on sentence.
. As stated in the foreword, the list of references proVided at the end of each chapter is not literature cited
but selected or suggested reading. It is disturbing that
several papers cited in the text are omitted from the terminal list of references and that several unconventional
bibliographic procedures are employed. When two papers
have the same author, the most recent is cited first and
in one instance, a paper having two authors is list~d in
the text as "first author" et al.
Also tending to detract from the manual is a lack of
at~ention to accuracy. The authors state that holly leafmmer (presumably Phytomyza ilicis Curtis) is the most
important pest of hollies in the eastern states when Kulp
(1968. Univ. Md. Agric. Exp. Stn. Bull. A-ISS) has
shown that the introduced P. ilicis is known in North
America only from the Pacific Northwest and that the
native holly leafminer, P. ilicicola Loew is the Common
holly pest in the eastern U.S. The leafhopper vector of
aster yellows is referred to under the names M acrosteles
devisa and M. devisis, but this insect should have been
cited as M. fascifrons (Stal).
In the text of Chapter 4
aster yellows and elm phloem necrosis are said to b~
transmitted by a mycoplasma or mycoplasma-like organism, but in the accompanying table the causal agents are
listed as viruse~. In the. discussion of planthoppers, we
are told that thiS group mcludes not only fulgorids and
lantern flies but also membracids, even though the treehoppers (membra~ids) h3;d been covered in the preceding
paragraph.
The IllustratIOn of a box elder bug (family
R~opalidae) is us~d as an example of a "plant bug" when
Wilson et al. preViously seem to have restricted this common narpe to the Miridae. We also are told that adults
of the linden looper are beetles, that molts of the gypsy
moth feed in trees, and that few arthropod-induced
galls
are found on algaes (italics ours).
V'( e commend the authors for seeing the need of intro:!l.mg students to ornamental plant protection. We have
been critical only to point out the necessity for more regard to accuracy and detail. Because our students are
i~pression3;ble, we hope the authors will be able to proVide a reVised, more carefully written edition of their
manual.
A. G. WHEELER,JR.
KARL VALLEY
Bureau of Plant Industry
Pennsylvania Department
Harrisburg 17120
of Agriculture
THE COCKROACH.Volume II by P. B. Cornwell. 1976.
Associated Business Programmes
LTD, London: St.
Martin's Press, N.Y. SS7 pages. $20.00.
This book is the long-awaited companion to Cornwell's
The Cockroach, Volume I published in 1968. Both volumes were written primarily for the cockroach control
practitioner. This volume concentrates on a wide range of
information useful to such people in support of their day
to day control operations. Volume I provided similar information with emphasis on cockroaches as insects.
Volume II is a veritable gold mine of information. It
treats cockroaches as pests, practical cockroach control
formulations, equipment, safety, legal considerations, re~
pel!ents and repellency, the insecticides, mode of action,
reSistance, cockroach rearing, and insecticide testing.
Each chapter emphasizes practical, control-oriented information pertinent to the subject under consideration. The