THK cabbage-fly: parasitic staph YLINIDiE. 189 



Parasitism of the Staphylinidm. — The above parasitic attack is of 

 much interest in connection with our efforts to check the ravages of these 

 root-bating larvae. It would not be confined to the cabbage-fly larva, 

 but would doubtless embrace all the allied species existing under simi- 

 lar conditions. The StaphylinidcB or rove-beetles have long been 

 known to abound in the diseased and distorted roots of the cabbage 

 and turnip. Curtis states {op. cit., p. 138) that different species of 

 Ahochara and Oxytclus* are frequently found in England, in decayed 

 turnips, and that in one instance, forty or fifty of the larvse of a 

 Staphylinus had been taken from below the leaves of a single bulb. 

 Some specimens of the same genera were discovered gnawing the roots 

 in July, and '' two of the beetles lived three months upon maggots oc- 

 curring in some turnips." 



As it is highly probable from the above statements of Curtis and 

 from other knowledge that we have of the habits of the Staphijlinidmy 

 that a large proportion of their food consists of living larvaj — the in- 

 jury that they may at times inflict by gnawing the roots of vegetables 

 is many times compensated by their predilection for living animal food, 

 and particularly for tender larv^.f It is, therefore, very desirable, 

 that these serviceable predatory and «cavenger beetles should not be 

 harmed when discovered in their favorite retreats, in association with in- 

 juries which would naturally, in the absence of a knowledge of their 

 habits, subject them to unjust suspicion and seem to authorize their de- 

 struction. 



Possible Introduction of Parasites from Europe. 

 In the large importation of cabbages from Europe, following the 

 widespread destruction of our crop of the past year (1881),J among 

 the new species of insects that will in all probability be brought over, 

 it is to be hoped that some useful parasites upon the cabbage-fly may 

 at the same time have been introduced, toward compensation for the 

 losses sustained in the sending hither, about twenty-five years ago, 

 the destructive cabbage-butterfly, Pieris rapce, and at another time, 

 Plusia hrassiccB, if its recently asserted identity with Plusia ni Hiibn. 



*0n page 139 (l. c), Oxytelus sculpturatus and 0. rugosus, which infest turnips and the 

 clubbed roots of broccoli in England, are figured. 



tSee statement in the Wi Annual Reiwrt on the Insects of Missouri, of these beetles pur- 

 suing and devouring the " snake-worm " — a name given to an assemblage of the larvseof 

 Sciara (a genus of small gnats), which have the strange habit of traveling in large com- 

 panies, in which all the individuals are attached to one another, heads to tails, and the en- 

 tire body moving together as if guided by a common impulse. 



tXhe high price of cabbages — from $15 to $30 per hundred, wholesale — has led to large 

 importations from Germany. They are brought in crates, and some sour-krout is imported 

 ready pickled in tierces. Turnips, celery and carrots are also to be seen among the freight 

 of all incoming vessels. — JVeio York Post, December, 1881. 



