44 SECOND REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the State; and also in numerous places on Long Island. The State 

 Agricultural Society has received * * * specimens of the worms 

 from the town of Dix, near the head of Seneca Lake, where they were 

 discovered August 12th, and of cornstalks and grass as ate by them 

 {ibid., p. 117). 



Anisopteryx vernata {Feck). 



Messrs. L. & A. B. Rathbone, extensive fruit-growers, at Oakland, 

 Genesee Co., N. Y., write as follows: 



'•' From 1873 to 1878, the canker-worms made sad havoc in our large 

 apple orchard of a thousand trees. After spending several hundreds 

 of dollars in trying to destroy them, we sprayed them with London 

 purple, and have never had to do it since." 



The above appears to have been a local attack of the insect, and its 

 arrest by the means described shows how easily it may be accomplished 

 and its further spread prevented. While yet extremely local within our 

 State and not of frequent occurrence, it is of the utmost importance to 

 fruit-growers that it be not permitted to increase and extend until it shall 

 become established in our elms, as in New England, where, from the 

 size of the trees, it will be almost beyond control. 



The Carpet-fly. 



From Mr. C. A. Richardson, of Canandaigua, N. Y., were received 

 under date of Jan. 5, 1883, specimens of " a very destructive moth found 

 in large numbers under a carpet." They were the vacated cases of 

 Tinea pellionella Linn. — the only case-bearing Tineid feeding on 

 woolen fabrics that occurs in the United States. In the same box were 

 contained several long, slender, white, worm-like forms, which were in 

 all probability the larvae of the carpet-fly, Sccnopinus fenestralis (Linn.), 

 subsequently re-described as Scenopiniis pallipcs by Say. Under the latter 

 name it has been described and figured in the Guide to the Study of 

 Jtisects, 1869, p. 401, f. 322, in both the larva and the imago stages. Dr. 

 Packard gives the following account of it: 



The larva is found under carpets, and is remarkable for the double 

 segmented appearance of all the abdominal segments, except the last 

 one, so that the body, exclusive of the head, seems as if twenty-jointed 

 instead of having but twelve joints. The head is conical, one-third 

 longer than broad, and of a reddish-brown color, while the body is 

 white. It is 0.65 of an inch in length. The larva is also said to live in 

 rotten wood, and is too scarce to be destructive to carpets. The fly is 

 black with a metallic hue and with pale feet. 



Mr. Richardson, in his communication, suggests that the larva may 

 perhaps feed upon the larvae and the pupae of the carpet moth, with 



