ROSE-BUG INCREDIBLY NUMEROUS IN PLACES. 247 



it is quite rare or wholly unknown. It is only occasionally that 

 I have found a specimen of it in the vicinity of my own resi- 

 dence, during the past twenty-five years. Some insects brought 

 me from Bethlehem, Pa., while writing these lines, have this 

 species among them, but the collector informs me it is not so 

 common there as to have been noticed as a depredator. Dr. 

 Harris states that it was wholly unknown in Maine and New 

 Hampshire, and in the northern and western parts of Massachu- 

 setts, although in and around Boston it was excessively numer- 

 ous. My correspondents in some parts of Ohio mention it as one 

 of the greatest pests in their neighborhoods. And in Mercer 

 county, Illinois, two years ago, I received surprising statements 

 respecting it. It was the chief and almost the only pernicious 

 insect which had ever been known upon the fruit trees there. 

 The clerk of the county, T. C. Cabeen, Esq , of Keithsburgh, 

 stated to me that in many orchards its numbers could scarcely 

 be credited by persons who had not seen them. It invades the 

 trees when the young apples are about the size of hazelnuts ; 

 and so eager is it for this fruit that it gathers upon the apples 

 like bees when swarming, crowding together and clinging one 

 on top of another, forming bunches as large as a tea-cup around 

 a single apple, or the two or three apples which commonly grow 

 from one bud. The fruit is wholly consumed by them, not an 

 apple remaining in the orchard; and when there are not apples 

 enough to satisfy them they eat the leaves of the trees also, more 

 or less. He said he was particularly acquainted with one 

 orchard, which had then for seven years in succession been 

 wholly stripped of fruit by these insects, except two of these 

 years, when the insect from some cause being not quite so 

 numerous, here and there a straggling apple could be discovered 

 upon some of the trees. Mr. James Burnet, residing in the same 

 vicinity, informed me, that whilst these insects are out, a person 

 cannot go into an orchard without their alighting upon his 

 clothes, frequently in such numbers as almost to cover him. 

 Though they do not continue long, their numbers and voracity 

 make ample amends for what they lack in consequence of the 

 shortness of their lives. They devour the young peaches also, 

 though they are less eager for them than for young apples. 



