88 STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



It is very encouraging to note the increasing interest taken by farm- 

 ers and fruit growers in learning all they can regarding these profit 

 reducers that they may be the better prepared to successfully cope with 

 them. The department is ever ready to assist what it can in increasing 

 and perfecting this knowledge. 



Before concluding this report, I should like to add a letter received from 

 the northern peninsula regarding one of our beneficial insects. The letter 

 is as follows: 



"Gentlemen — I send you herewith a larva that I captured yesterday morning which 

 is a regular terror to destroy cut worms. It also eats grasshoppers and does it in a 

 wolfish way. When it once takes hold of a cut worm it never lets go until it has eaten 

 the whole mside out. Last year about this time, I caught one of these larv* while pick- 

 ing cut worms and I supposed at the time that it was a plant destroyer, but I had 

 hardly dropped it in with the cut worms (had them in a bottle where I could see its 

 actions plainly) when it went to work and nabbed one of the worms, and in less than 

 two minutes it had sucked the entire inside out. Then another was taken. It was then 

 noon and I went home for dinner, but first took out all the cut worms except twelve 

 large ones. I supposed this would be enough for the day, but no. By the tmie I had 

 eaten my dinner, which took about half an hour, the larva had eaten every one of the 

 cut worms, so I took it back to the field and left it to hunt its own grub which it had no 

 trouble in finding here last year." 



"This year the cut worms are very scarce here, but there are some. This larva which 

 I send you, I caught in the city. I was talking with a lady when I saw it running on 

 top of the ground and then run under a sod, among some potatoes to hide. I recog- 

 nized it and at once captured it. Then I told the lady what it was capable of doing, and 

 we went back to the garden where she thought she could find some cut worms. We 

 found none, so the lady put a grasshopper in the box with it and it nabbed the hopper at 

 once. Twenty minutes later when I wanted to show it to a party, I found the half-grown 

 hopper all eaten except one leg. Last night I found three cut worms and put them in with 

 it, but all was dark then. Had it under lamp light and it would not touch them, but 

 this morning, when I opened the box, I found there was nothing left but itself and a 

 lot of dirt. I believe it does not eat at night. Perhaps this is the reason it has 

 such a terrible appetite during the day." 



•' I wish you would write me the name of this larva and tell me where its home is as I 

 think it is a stranger here. Also let me know if it destroys plants. 1 wish you would 

 experiment with it and write results." 



R . B . 



The larva which he sent is shown at a in the cut. It is the young or 

 larval stage of the imago or mature beetle which is shown at h. The name 

 by which it is known is the cut worm lion or 

 scientifically as Calosoma calidiim. It is a 

 native of Michigan and probably all of North- 

 eastern U. S. In all stages they live concealed 

 from view as much as possible by living under 

 sods, boards or rubbish and so are not often 

 seen. The larva attracted considerable interest 

 here at the college as we had just passed through 

 a troublesome cut worm attack ourselves. Sev- 

 (q) eral times I was accosted with the question 

 " Why can't they be reared in quantities and distributed 

 over the cornfields at the time the cut worms com- C') 



mencework?" No doubt this would be a great help in keeping the cut 

 worms subdued if we could turn enough of these hunters loose in the field. 

 There is at least one hindrance that would preclude us from accomplishing 

 our purpose in the breeding of the larviv, and that is, they are cannibals. 

 They feed as readily upon each otlier when an ample supply of food is not 

 furnished them as they do upon the cut worms naturally. As it is, they 



