"To be brief, Dr. Fitch's Sigalphus is a true parasite on the plum curcuHo and I have 

 bred hundreds of the flies from curcuHo larvae. The first bred specimens gave me much 

 pleasure, for as soon a.s I saw they belonged to the same genus as Dr. Fitch's fly, I felt as- 

 sured that another disputed question was settled, but to make assurance doubly sure, I re- 

 peatedly half filled large jars with pure earth, finely sifted so that no living animal re- 

 mained in it. Into these jars I placed curculio larvae from day to day as they issued from 

 peaches that were thrown into another vessel, and in due time the parasitic flies began to 

 issue from the giound along with the perfect curculios. Nay, more than this, I soon 

 learned to distinguish such curculio larva; as were parasitised, and after tliey had worried 

 themselves under the ground — seldom more than half an inch — I would uncover them, 

 and on several occasions had the satisfaction of watching the gnawing worm within reduce 

 Fi^. 14. _ its victim until finally nothing was left of him. As 



soon as the curculio larva is destroyed by the parasite, 

 the latter (Fig. 14 a) encloses itself in a tough little 

 yellowish cocoon of silk (Fig. 14 h.) then gradually 

 assumes the pupa state (Fig. 14 f.) and at the end of 

 about the same length of time that the curculio 



require to undergo its transformations and issue as 



ty a beetle, this, its deadly foe, gnaws a hole through 

 its cocoon and issues to the light of day as a black four winged fly (Fig. 15 a, male; b, 

 female). In the vicinity of St. Louis, this fly was so common the past season that after 

 ri.r. 1.5. very careful estimates, I am satisfied three- 



fourths of all the more early developed 

 curculio larvae were destroyed by it. On 

 the 17th and I8th of April, in that locality 

 a severe frost killed the peach buds on all 

 but a few of the young and most vigorous 

 trees of Hale's Early and Crawford, so that 



>^fjn 9 "V""^ ^^^^^D^Ji^^^^I^^ 1^ instead of a large and abundant crop of 

 l^jLvL^ _j fiS\\ peaches to depredate on, the little Turk had 



to concentrate liis attacks on the few peaches 

 that were left ; and no one expected any fruit 

 would be saved. Yet, the work of this 

 little parasite was so eflectual that, where- 

 ever fruit set, a fair crop was gathered even by those who made no eflbrt at all to protect 

 their trees. 



" "While visiting Dr. Fitch last August, at his house in Salem, N. Y., I compared my 

 bred specimens with his species, and found tlicm identically the same ; but a full descrip- 

 tion will be found below, and it is not necessary at present to dwell upon its characters. 



" As Mr. Walsh bred this same parasite from the larva of his little plum moth, it 

 doubtless attacks other soft-bodied insects, and does not confine itself to the plum curculio. 

 This is the more likely as it would scarcely pass the winter in the fly state. The female, 

 with that wonderful instinct which is e.xhibited in such a surpassing degree in the insect 

 world, knows as well as we, great lords of creation, what the little crescent mark upon tlie 

 peach or plum indicates ; and can doubtless tell with more surety, thougli she has never 

 received a lesson from her parents, whether or not a curculio larva is drilling its way 

 through the fruit. When she has once ascertained the presence of sucli a larva by the aid 

 of her antennae, which she deftly applies to ditterent parts of the fruit, and which <loubt- 

 less possess some occult and delicate sense of perception, which, with our comparatively 

 dull -senses, we are unable to comprehend— then she pierces the fruit, and with unerring 

 iirecision deposits a single egg in iier victim by means of her ovipositor. 



"Now there is, as I shall shew in the description, a variety (riifus) of this parasite, 

 with the ovipositor nearly one-fifth of an inch in length ; but in the normal form the ovi- 

 positor is only twelve-hundreths of an inch long, and the curculio larva must be reached 

 soon after it hatches, or while yet very young. Consequently we find that the earliest 

 curculio Larvx or those which hatch while the fruit is yet small, are the most subject to 

 be parasitised, and while from Ijirvse obtained early in the season, I bred more parasites 



