It is noteworthy that even tobacco-leaves, the avowed destroyers of insect life, should themselves be the prey of some form of the ubiquitous microbe. Besides the mite just mentioned that speckles the outer leaf of old cigars, a more ravenous one has been discovered working its will on Indian cigar-leaf. In a recent issue of _Indian Museum Notes_, Mr. Cote gives an interesting account of the works and ways of an insect that drills tiny round holes in tobacco-leaves, so small indeed that they had escaped observation until the havoc wrought awakened alarm. The pest tunnels its way through the leaf, irrespective of strength or flavour, even the Trichinopoli is not beyond its taste. And it multiplies so rapidly that much valuable leaf is soon rendered worthless for smoking. Its method of working has suggested the name of weevil. The Indian tobacco industry, therefore, has now to reckon with a new and unscrupulous competitor in the form of the ‘cigar weevil.’ It would be a boon to long-suffering humanity and a triumph for the bacteriologist if he could manage to set one tribe against another of these evil-doers, to their mutual destruction. If they are like living things in the natural world they will have their foes and their struggles for existence. The old lady’s belief that microbes have pink eyes and ravenous teeth may not be perfectly accurate, yet judging from their insidious attacks on unsuspecting mortals we are warranted in assuming that they have other very effective means of combat. The spectacle of internecine warfare going on in their little world, as revealed under the microscope, would afford from its novelty an exhibition worth going miles to see. The tobacco-plant is not now cultivated in England. James the First thought it shameful that so pernicious a plant should be permitted to take root in our rich and fruitful soil, and caused an edict to be issued prohibiting its cultivation within the British Islands. The King’s apologists find reason for the prohibition in his Majesty’s concern for the interests of the young colony of tobacco planters settled in Virginia. Be this as it may, Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) on economic grounds condemns the enactment, saying, ‘Home cultivation of tobacco has on this account most absurdly been prohibited through the greater part of Europe which necessarily gives a monopoly to the countries where its cultivation is allowed.’