216 



our native katydids, by eating holes in tlie leaves and gnawing away 

 tlie edges. Their jaws were remarkably strong and sharp, and when 

 the insects were iucautionsly handled they bit so severely as to draw 

 blood. The male was about 1.75 inch in length from the tip of the cone, 

 or horn on its forhead, to the end of its wing-covers when closed. The 

 female measured 3.05 inches to the end of the ovipositor, which itself 

 w^as at least 1.25 inch in length. Tlie general color of both male and 

 female was alightpea-groen, and the wings were delicately veined with 

 distinct nerves, resembling the venation of leaves. A very marked 

 feature in this insect, when alive, is that the labrum and clypeus are 

 bright yellow, contrasting strongly with the jet-black of the mandibles, 

 which, together with the cone or horn on the top of its head, gives it a 

 remarkable appearance. This cone or horn, vt'hich is placed obliquely 

 upward on the top of the forehead, forming a line Avith the face, is yel- 

 low beneath, black at the tip, and ends in an acute point, which is some- 

 what bent downward at its summit. No insect resembling it having 

 hitherto been found in this neighborhood, there is but little doubt but 

 that it has lately been imported with or on some foreign plants sent 

 from South America or the West Indies, and as many exotic plants 

 have been received from Balize, British Honduras, it is probable that 

 this grasshopper came in the egg-state, on some of the plants from that 

 locality, and was hatched out last summer in the green-house. This fact 

 alone admonishes us how careful we should be when importing new and 

 valuable plants from abroad, for if a large insect, nearly two inches in 

 length, and fully the size of a katydid, can be so easily introduced, 

 how much more readily the small and inconspicuous noxious insects 

 hidden under the bark would be likely to escape notice, until they had 

 perpetuated their species, so as to become partially naturalized and 

 injurious to our plants. There is no danger, however, that this grass- 

 hopper will spread, and, as it is apparently very tender and accustomed 

 to a troi)ical climate, most probably it would not be able to withstand 

 the rigors of our winters in the open air, and as all were killed or caught 

 as soon as seen in the green-house, there is very little probability of any 

 being left to perpetuate their race. 



Mr. Thomas has described this insect under the name of Copiophora 

 mitcronata, in the Canadian Entomologist for January, 1872, and gives 

 it as his opinion that it approaches nearer C. cornuta found at Para, 

 South America, or C. gracilis, at Napo or Maranon, than any other species 

 of which he has knowledge. 



New earth-wobm. — In connection with the subject of introducing 

 new enemies to plants from abroad, it may be advisable to mention 

 that at the present time a very large and apparently new species of 

 earth-worm, thought to have been first introduced in the earth in which 

 some Japanese plants were imported in the expedition under Commo- 

 dore Perry, has increased and multiplied in the hot-houses so much as 

 to have become a veritable nuisance. This worm is probably the same 

 mentioned in the English Gardeners Chronicle of April 21, 18G9, by D. 

 T. Fish, F. E. H. S., under the name of the eel-worm, its habits 

 and ap})earauce being almost identical with that in the hot-houses 

 of the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Fish, after stating that it 

 is very injurious to plants in pots, and had been known for 

 twenty years, says that it is " probably a tropical relation of 

 the common earth-worm, as it cannot live out of doors in the climate of 

 England and scarcely subsists in a green-house, but revels in the tem- 

 perature of a i)lant-stove or orchideous house. It differs from the com- 

 mon worm in its mode of locomotion and in several of its habits. It 



