Many unusual tasks fall to the lot ör modern commercial aviation, says the "Imperial Airways Bulletin," but one of the oddest deals with tests made to throw light on how insect pests likely to cause damage to frees or crops may be air-borne from one place to another in wind-currents having an upward trend.
In order to obtain insect life specimens from the air, special nets of extremely fine-mesh gauze, with pads at the end of them on which specimens are retained, are towed behind aeroplanes. In this way specimens not only of insect-life, but also of minute particles of vegetable mgttér, can be obtained from different altitudes for laboratory purposes.
By another method mid-air specimens are caught on glass plates which: have been coated with an adhesive stuff.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.