312 FIKST AN K UAL KEPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



upon examination in the wheat in adjoining counties in Vermont. In 

 Canada West, the wheat was also uninjured the preceding year. In 

 Western New York, the insect continues to be as common as hereto- 

 fore. It appears then, that over a large extent of country, its injuries 

 have greatly diminished, and in some places entirely ceased. Wheat 

 may again be sown with every prospect of abundant return. The 

 midge may again increase and become as great a pest as before, yet it 

 seems more probable that its greatest injuries have passed, and that 

 they will never again be repeated to the same extent, in this country. 



1861. The Entomologist. No. XXVIIL— The Apple-tree Borer. 

 (The Country Gentleman, June G, 1861, xvii, p. 370 — 18 cm.) 

 In reply to inquiries made from Kansas of a borer injuring the young 

 limbs of apple-trees in the manner detailed, the insect is identified as 

 the Bostrichiis hicaudatus of Say [now known as Amphicerus bicaitda- 

 tusj. A description is given of it, and it is represented as common in 

 the orchards of Michigan and Illinois, ranging from Pennsylvania to 

 Mississippi, but not known to occur in New York or New England. 

 Directions are given how to discover its attack, and for destroying it 

 by cutting off and burning the infested twigs, or, when it enters at a 

 fork of the limbs as stated in the inquiry, by thrusting in a wire until 

 the beetle is reached and killed. 



1861. The Army- Worm and Cut-Worm. (The Country Gentleman, 

 July 4, 1861, xviii, p. 18 — 20 cm.) 



The Cut- worms that sever the young cabbages, leaves, etc., so well 

 known to all gardeners, are the progeny of the dark-colored " millers " 

 that enter our houses on summer evenings, of which there are many 

 species belonging to the genus Agrostis \^AgroUs\, of the Noctuidm. 



The Army-worm Dr. Fitch supposes to be "one of our common cut- 

 worms multiplied to excess and having become gregarious and migra- 

 tory like the locust." Specimens of the worms had been sent from 

 Illinois which resembled the cut-worm except in its brighter colors, the 

 result perhaps of its greater exposure to light. The moths had been 

 received from Maryland, but in too poor a condition for identification, 

 and its species was therefore at the present unknown . The " black 

 worm" which had been so remarkably destructive over large districts, 

 at intervals, in New England (several instances cited), are believed to 

 have been traveling swarms of one of our common cut-worms. 



1861. The Entomologist. No. XXIX.— The Army- Worm Moth. 

 (The Country Gentleman, July 25, 1861, xviii, p. 66 — 49 cm.) 

 Dr. Fitch tells the story of his specific identification of the army- 

 worm moth, which is of sufficient interest to justify its quotation. A 

 specimen of the army-worm and the moth bred from it, had been sent 

 to him from a correspondent in Illinois, in a tin tube of alcohol, the 

 moth proving when extracted to be " a soft, shapeless black mass. On 

 carefully disentangling and spreading its wings, and drying it, my 

 first step was to compare it with the broken and effaced specimens re- 

 ceived last year from Maryland. I hereupon saw that the Army- worm 

 in Maryland last year and that now in Illinois were undoubtedly one 



