STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 421 



CURRANT. » STALKS. 



than broad, and shaped like a reversed cone, the two succeeding joints longest 

 of all, the fifth one much shorter and all the following ones shorter still, the 

 last one being pointed at its tip. The under side is black with small punctures 

 which are close and somewhat confluent, and the surface is thinly covered with 

 short incumbent gray hairs. The legs have similar hairs and are pale chest- 

 nut with the thickened part of the thighs black and sometimes the tips of the 

 shanks also, the forward shanks presenting a slight wide transverse concavity 

 on their insides. 



Variety a. Color chestnut brown throughout. 



In the cavity in the interior of diseased currant stalks, I have 

 met with a small mite, which is described on one of the following 

 pages, and also with two kind^" of larvae in addition to those of the 

 currant borer. One of these larvae lies naked among the chips 

 made by the borer, and is scarcely 0.10 long, white, glassy, with- 

 out feet, tapering to a point at one end, which point is thrust out 

 and retracted at the pleasure of the worm and shows two blackish 

 parallel lines upon one side. I have not yet succeeded in obtaining 

 these in their perfect state, but they are evidently the maggot of 

 some small two-winged fly, which is not a parasite upon the borer, 

 for the remains of no dead worm are seen near them. Their fur- 

 ther habits and economy still remain to be traced out. 



The other worms are parasites, several of which live together 

 in the body of the borer till they get their growth, by which time 

 they have consumed all the internal parts of their foster-parent 

 so that only the outer skin remains. They then crawl from this 

 skin and spin their cocoons at short distances one above anotlier 

 in the cell. Their cocoons are 0.20 long and of sufB.cient width 

 to fill the cavity where they are placed. They are thin and 

 almost transparent, appearing like a fine membranous substance 

 through which the worm witliin can plainly be seen. After finish- 

 ing their cocoons they cast their skins, which form a little black 

 mass in the upper end of the cocoon. The worms as found in 

 these cocoons in the winter season are 0.13 long by 0.06 in width, 

 white, shining, soft and of a llesh-like substance, their form ellip- 

 tic but curved into the shaj)e of a crescent, the sutures marked 

 by transverse lines, sliglitly constricted, witli a very fine pale 

 brown transverse line placed at the moutli. These worms change to 

 pupae in the spring and give out the perfect insect the fore part of 

 June. They tlius come abroad about three weeks after the Iwrers 

 have come out, so that by the time they are ready to deposit their 



