Ciinatliati ffiiitoniologist* 



Vol XXVril. LONDON, MARCH. 1896. No. 



CEUTORHYNCHUS NAPI OR CEUTORHYNCHUS RAP^. 



BY F. M. WEBSTER, WOOSTER, OHIO. 



In the report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 1888, p. 136, 

 Miss Mary E. Murtfeldt gives some notes on the development of 

 Ceutorhynchus ?iapi, Gyll., which had worked serious injury to cabbage 

 in Missouri, the species having been determined, as stated by Miss 

 Murtfeldt, by the late Dr. C. V. Riley, at that time United States Ento- 

 mologist. Prior to the publication of Miss Murtfeldt's notice, she had 

 informed me of her " find," and on my writing to ask her if there was not 

 a mistake, and if she did not refer to rapce, she replied' that she, too, had 

 not felt sure of the correctness of the determination until she had written 

 Dr. Riley a second time with reference to the species, and the determina- 

 tion had been reaffirmed. This appeared to settle the matter, and I was 

 satisfied that 7iapi must be correct, though not before known to occur in 

 North America. 



In Bulletin 22, Division of Entomology, United States Department 

 of Agriculture, p. 73, Miss Murtfeldt mentions Ceutorhynchus rapce, 

 Gyll., but does not state whether or not it is the same insect that had 

 been previously mentioned, and there is nothing to imply that such was 

 the case. 



In Bulletin 30, of the same series, p. 50, mention is again made of 

 Ceutorhynchus rapcp., and this time in a manner that might imply that it 

 was identical with napi, but there is nothing definite to this effect, though 

 a correction might have been made in either this or the reference 

 previously cited. Miss Murtfeldt was clearly going by the information 

 given her from the Department of Agriculture, and any errors in that 

 information would not be hers, but of the Division of Entomology, whose 

 place it was to make proper corrections of such, even though of a clerical 

 nature, as a matter of justice to the many who looked to the then 

 United States Entomologist as authority on such matters. 

 \i Last May I received young cabbage plants from Montgomery 



County, Ohio, that were being destroyed by larvae of some insect burrow- 



