THE HOP GRUB GORTYNA IMMANIS. 4I 



of a cluster of thirty found by me after their second molt, about one- 

 third were subsequently destroyed by ichneumons, which proved to be 

 Limneria fugitiva (Say) and an undetermined species of Microgaster. 

 For details of this parasitism, see my " Biography of Hemileuca Maia " 

 in the Twenty-third Report on the N. Y. State Cabinet of Natio-al His- 

 tory. 1872, pp. 146, 147, ox Entomological Contributions [No. i], pp. 14, 15. 



The Hop Grub — Gortyna immanis (G^/^^//.). 



In my First Report, the reference to the " grub " attacking the root 

 of the hop-vine (page 6i), has been interpreted by an English writer as 

 referring to the "white-grub," Lachnosterna fusca Frohl. — a very nat- 

 ural interpretation, from the well-known habits of that destructive spe- 

 cies as a root-devourer, taken in connection with the customary limita- 

 tion by our more careful writers of the term "grub " to a coleopterous 

 larva, and often to the conspicuous and well-characterized larva of the 

 Scarabeidce. 



The " hop-grub " was long supposed to be the larva of a beetle allied 

 to the " white-grub," if not that identical species. Even so late as May 

 of 18S2, a paper was published in the Canadian Entomologist,* by Mr. 

 Charles R. Dodge, of Washington, D. C, upon the " Hop-vine Borer," 

 in which the feeding habits of the "larva" are correctly given, together 

 with much valuable information of the injuries committed by it, and 

 best method of dealing with it, but without presuming so much as to 

 venture an opinion even as to the Order to which the insect might be- 

 long. Our first knowledge of its true character was that obtained from 

 Professor J. H. Comstock, who, at the Annual meeting of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of Ontario, held at Montreal, during the meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, in August of 

 1882, exhibited to those in attendance several examples of the insect 

 which he had succeeded in rearing from the " hop-grub." It was a large 

 and conspicuous moth, evidently belonging to the genus Gortyna, and 

 presumably referable to the Gortyna itnmanis of Guenee. 



We have no knowledge of any publication by Professor Comstock of 

 his study of this insect. It has subsequently been carefully studied by 

 Mr. John B. Smith, of Brooklyn, L. I., under the direction of the En- 

 tomological Division of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, who has 

 given its life-history, together with remedies for its ravages, in Bulletin 

 No. 4, Division of Entomology, 1884, pp. 34-39, figs. 2-4. The follow- 

 ing is a summary of its history: 



The egg, yellow-green, round, and of the size of a pin-head, is depos- 



* Canadian Entomologist, 1882, xiv, pp. 93-96. 

 6 



