This is also figured (except the male) Plate 6, and described page 18, Patent 

 Office Report for 1854, wherein it is recommended "to destroy the caterpillars 

 by syringing the leaves with a solution of whale-oil soap, and then trampling under 

 foot those which fall to. the ground, or by picking off the infected leaves by hand, 

 when not too numerous." (The latter is my plan.) In reference to this subject, 

 it is also mentioned "that the French have a method of destroying small moths 

 in their gardens, by the use of cords dipped in honey, and stretched from tree to 

 tree. These cords at the same time attract the insect by their sweetness, and 

 entrap them from their adhesiveness." 



Fig. 5 represents the larva of Selandria vitis, also a great pest to the vine ; 

 they are of a greenish-yellow color, tapering behind ; an olive blotch on the last 

 and front segments, each with two transverse rows of single spiues, which are 

 black, and more conspicuous on the first three rings, perfectly naked. Those have 

 twenty-two legs, and, when fully grown, are about five-eighths of an inch in length. 



The fly, or parent, is of a jet-black color, except the upper side of the thorax, 

 wdiich is red ; legs, pale-yellowish ; the wings with brown veins of a smoky color. 

 These flies rise from the ground in spring, and lay their eggs. (See Harris, p. 370.) 



The slug-worm (those little, snail-like, tadpole-shaped, slimy caterpillars), quite 

 too common on our cherry and pear-trees, belong to the same family — Blenno- 

 campa ceraci, or Selandria cerasi, the first name being most appropriate. A 

 neighbor of mine saved a young pear-tree by dusting black pepper over them 

 when the dew was yet upon the leaves. 



[Mr. Stauffer is an accurate observer, and what is quite remarkable and inte- 

 resting, he furnishes wood-cuts for his illustrations, made by his own hand. He 

 has our thanks for these contributions, and we hope he will continue them. — Ed.] 



THE PEAR SLUG. 



BY JOHN C. HANCHETT, SYRACUSE, NEW YORK. 



In the Horticulturist for September of last year, there appeared a very interest- 

 ing article, from the pen of a lady, upon the natural history of the Pear Slug. I 

 refer to it here, in order to make a slight correction in one particular — a correc- 

 tion, important only as the account is not strictly exact. " Their eggs," she says, 

 " are placed, singly, within little semicircular incisions through the skin of the leaf, 

 and generally on the lower side of it." This account is also given in Cole's Ameri- 

 can Fruit Book, and I am sure I have seen it elsewhere. 



I inclose two leaves taken from a young pear-tree, which, you will observe, are 

 covered with what appear to be small, perforated, white scales lying promiscuously 

 all over and upon the upper surface. These are the remains of the eggs from 

 which the young slugs have passed to their work, the perfect egg appearing simply 

 like a perfect scale. It has been for ray interest to watch the advent of these 

 creatures for some years past, and I have found the first evidence of their coming 

 to be the appearance of these scales, placed superficially upon the upper surface. 

 I have never discovered any incision in the leaf, nor even an accidental deposit, in 

 a single instance, upon the lower surface. There are evidences of nearly a hun- 

 dred of these eggs having been deposited upon each of the leaves which I send 

 you ; and, from their number, you will readily and correctly surmise that the de- 

 structiveness of the insect, even in the first four hours of its existence, must be 

 very great. Though the lower leaves of the tree are those chiefly upon which the 

 are deposited, yet, as you can judge from the sami)le before you, an entire 

 would be speedily divested of its foliage, if the insects, as they increase in 



