362 



[Massachusetts Ploughman, Vol. Ill, No. xlii, July 20, 1844, with woodcuts.] 



[Smynthurus cucumeris Harr. mss.] 



The creature is about as large as the black dot between the two figures. 

 His body is plump and egg-shaped, and his head has the form of a heart. 

 He has two horns or antennas which are jointed and movable, and are 

 elbowed near the middle. On each side of his head there are eight eyes, 

 very small, and clustered closely together, so as to ajjpear as one. His legs 

 are six in number, and end with little claws. He cannot run veiy fast, but 

 as you have seen, he can leap with surprising agiUty, and to a great dis- 

 tance. If you want to know by what means he jumps, you must examine 

 the lower side of his body, as shown in the second figure; you will there 

 find a forked spring bent under the body and reaching to the joints of the 

 fore legs. Each tine of this spring fork is jointed, and the whole instru- 

 ment can be turned backwards and forwards in an instant. Should he 

 chance to aliffht on the ed";e of a leaf, and find it difficult to hold on with 

 his feet, he throws out, from a kind of teat in the middle of his breast, a 

 couple of grappling cords, smeared with adhesive slime, by which he secures 

 himself from falling. The form of the cucumber skipper remains the same 

 at all ages. His color when young is brown, and gradually changes to 

 brownish black. Short and very fine hairs are scattered over the surface 

 of his body, and give it somewhat of a gloss. His mouth and his teeth are 

 very small; but he contrives to nibble, and probably also to suck the seed 

 leaves of the cucumber so as to make them wither and die. Of his further 

 history nothing is known to me. It may be that he lives only one summer, 

 and that his mate leaves her eggs in the ground to be hatched and bring 

 out a new brood of skippers the following spring. The scientific name of 

 this little animal is Syvinthurus, but whether he be the species called altra 

 by Linnaeus, or should turn out to be diflTerent thereform, I know not. 



[The following passages in the first edition of the State Report on Insects 

 were not included in the third edition ; the number at the cwnnnencement 

 of each extract refers to the page of the first edition from Avhich it has 

 been taken.] 



[Note to Melolontha variolosa, p. 33 of 3d Ed.] 



[30.] In my prize essay, before alluded to, I pro]iosed to restrict the genus 

 Melolontha to those species that have more than three leaves in tlie knob of 

 the antennae, as in the variolosa, and the European Scarabanis Melolontha 

 of Linnajus. This has actually been done by Latreille, but i)robably with- 

 out being aware of my suggestion. It would have been better, however, to 



