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Vol. XXIX. LONDON, MARCH, 1897. No. 3. 



THE BLUEBERRY SPAN-WORM (DIASTICTIS INCEPTARIA, 



Walk.) AND THE BUMBLE FL0WER-15EETLE 



(EUPHORIA INDA, Linn.). 



BY M. V. SLINGERLAND, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y. 



On May 20th, 1896, I received the following letter from a corre- 

 spondent in Mount Vernon, N. H. : "I enclose you worms that are 

 making sad havoc with the blueberry crop in this section. They seem to 

 be great feeders, completely stripping the bushes of leaves and blossoms, 

 but do not touch the green berries after they begin to form. The berry 

 fields look as though a fire had passed over them, and the worms have 

 nearly ruined the blueberry crop in this vicinity. 



" This blueberry ( Vaccinium pennsylvanicum) needs no cultivation, 

 only to burn over the old bushes every itw years, when the new bushes 

 will shoot up and bear the following year. There are hundreds of acres 

 of land producing these berries in this and neighbouring towns, and so far 

 as I can learn, about three- fifths of the crop has been destroyed by the 

 worms." 



Accompanying the letter were four nearly full-grown span-worms and 

 one pupa. The larvte were new to me, and their ravages described above 

 also made them interesting from an economic standpoint. One vvas 

 therefore photographed, about three times natural size ; both dorsal and 

 lateral views of it are shown on the plate. When full-grown the larvae 

 measure about five-eighths of an inch in length and are peculiarly marked, 

 as the figures show. The general colour of the body is light yellowish- 

 purple. The dark portions are of a dead black colour. The sutures of 

 the head are broadly margined with white, and a broad white band crosses 

 the sides of the head. The mesal stripe on the dorsum is light yellow, 

 as is also the narrow stripe extending along the subdorsal region through 

 the large black areas. The broad stigmatal stripe is light orange-yellow, 

 whitish below each large black area. Spiracles black. The large black 

 subdorsal areas are in a broad light purplish stripe. The body is sparsely 



