460 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



HICKORY. FRUIT. 



minute teeth with their points curved backward, those of each 

 anterior row being larger. 



The specimen of the motli being somewhat mutilated does not 

 enable me to be perfectly certain respecting the genus to which 

 it pertains, though everything indicates it to be an Ephippophora^ 

 of which genus we have several undescribed species in the State 

 of New- York, some of them quite common. It is of a sooty black 

 color, its fore wings with reflections of tawny yellow, blue and 

 purple, their outer margin black with oblique triangular whitish 

 streaks placed at equal distances apart, these streaks gradually 

 becoming more faint anteriorly and disappearing for a short space 

 at the base, and all of them except the last three double or in 

 pairs separated only by a slender black line. A very oblique 

 faint silvery blua streak extends inwards from the points of two 

 of these white streaks, namely, the fourth and sixth ones from the 

 tip of the wing; and the usual white spot on the inner margin 

 of the wings in this genus is wanting in the present species. Its 

 hind wings are silvery whitish on their outer basal half, the scales 

 of the inner basal portion having a blue and a gray reflection, and 

 their fringe is bluish white. The face and fore breast is cream- 

 yellow, the hind breast and base of the abdomen hoary white, the 

 third and following segments of the abdomen coal-black. Width 

 of the spread wings, 0.60. 



Mr. Potter states that in his own neighborhood this insect had 

 been common for a few years and became so numerous in 1856 

 that several of the hickory trees scarcely produced a single nut. 

 The present year, 1857, all our native fruit trees have yielded an 

 unusual abundance of fruit, and I have not been able to find one 

 of these worms whereby to render this account of them more exact. 

 It is quite probable that, like many of its kindred, this moth will 

 be numerous at times, and will then suddenly disappear, being 

 destroyed by parasitic enemies, by unfavorable seasons, or other 

 causes. Picking up and burning the infested nuts is probably 

 the only mode whereby we can diminish its numbers. 



185. Long-beaked nut weevil, Balaninus nasicus. Say. (Coleoptera. 



Curculionidge.) 



A weevil with its remarkably long slender beak drilling a hole 

 in the nut w^hen it is young and soft and placing an egg therein, 



