From Ferdinand von Mueller to the Weekly Times   [Oct 1885]

The hempipterous¹ insect sent from Warrnambool is a so-called "wood-bug," the name, according to the museum collections brought together by Professor M'Coy for public information, being Dindymus versicolor. To combat this gregarious and destructive moth,² the ordinary remedies might be tried, such as dusting with a bellows some flour of sulphur over the plants attacked, also syringing with water in which tobacco has been steeped, or some soap has been dissolved. Kerosene or coal oil, mixed with a quantity of wood ashes or some soda for a few hours, and then made to dissolve, would give a mixture adverse to all such kinds of insects, and this remedy, of course, could be prepared easily and applied with an ordinary garden syringe. Raising smoke thick among or under the affected trees might suffocate many of the bugs and drive the rest away. It should be found out how and where this wood-bug deposits its ova, so that measures for their destruction could be devised and adopted accordingly. Mr. C. Frendo,³ who has given much attention in watching the effect of noxious insects on various plants, and who has placed an interesting collection of wood specimens and twigs infested by various larvae, etc., in the museum gallery of the Exhibition Building, suggests that if this insect, in its early stage, gets copiously into trees or shrubs, to shake the latter while an umbrella is placed underneath, by which means lots could be caught, and then thrown into water for destruction.