No. 115.] 85 



ing of the trees, witli London purple, had the desired effect and 

 prevented much damage. 



In Milbrook, Dutchess county, the presence of canker-worms 

 was reported May seventeenth, but they were not proving very 

 destructive. 



At Easton, Washington county, at the same date, fruit trees were 

 suffering from the ravages of the apple-tree tent caterpillar, Clisio- 

 campa Americana Harris. A month later, the currant worm, 

 Nematus ventricosus King, had invaded every garden and was 

 rapidly consuming the foliage of the currant bushes. 



A letter from Middletown, Orange county, of June twenty- 

 ninth, to the New York Times, asserts a loss, the present year, of 

 one-third of an average crop of 400,000 bushels of onions, as caused 

 by the onion-fiy, Phorhia ceparum, Meigen (for an account of 

 which see my First Report, pp. 171-181). The same letter states 

 that " the fly had also attacked the leaf of the beet, depositing its 

 egg beneath the epidermis, where the grub feeds upon the green 

 matter until it reaches maturity and seeks a hiding place in the 

 ground." This latter attack was not by the onion-fly, but by one 

 of the beet-leaf miners, probably Chortophila hetariim or Pegomyia 

 vicina, described, and habits given by me, loc. cit. pp. 203-211. 



The "grapevine beetle," probably the small chrysomelid, which 

 often proves a great trial to grape growers, Graptodera chalyhea 

 Illiger, was reported, in May, as injuring some vineyards on Lake 

 Keuka by eating the buds before the leaves expanded. The beetles, 

 whicli had hibernated in their perfect stage, after feeding as above, 

 deposited their orange-colored eggs in clusters upon the under 

 side of the young leaves, from which larvae shortly hatched, to 

 continue the attack by riddling or entirely devouring the foliage. 



In Kingston, Dutchess county, the curcnlio, Conotrachelus 

 nemiphar Herbst, was more injurious than usual to plums. 



As an illustration of the concealment under which the early 

 stages of the lives of some of our insects are passed, some observa- 

 tions made by me upon the preparatory stages of a fly, whose exist- 

 ence in this country was previously unknown, were of peculiar 

 interest to me. 



Catkins of the white birch, BeUila alba^ were sent to me with 

 the inquiry, what insect deposits its eggs in the seeds? The first 

 examination disclosed no insect presence, but close observation 



