6 
eruption described and yet not be able to gnaw through this cloth 
and make their escape, as every one who has reared these insects in 
confinement has witnessed their frantic efforts to escape as soon as 
they gnaw their way out of the straws. The mite Pediculoides ven- 
tricosus now furnishes as good an explanation of these attacks 
referred to by Harris as we can expect to secure, after a lapse of 
three-quarters of a century, with no possibility of obtaining actual 
proof in the case. 
In 1884 the writer found this same mite attacking and destroying 
the wheat strawworm (/sosoma grande Riley) at Oxford, Ind., and 
in speaking of the occurrence of this larva and its parasites, he made 
this statement: 
Curiously enough, during the time it occupies the stubble in the larval and pupal 
stages, it sometimes falls a victim to the mite Pediculoides (Heteropus) ventricosus, 
which enters the stubble from above after the grain is cut, but whose sense of discrimi- 
nation is rather poorly developed, and it is finally victorious over the Jsosoma larvee, 
its parasites, and the predaceous larve of Leptotrachelus dorsalis. 
The same year, and in the same locality, this mite was again 
encountered by the writer, attacking the greater wheat-stem maggot 
in wheat straw, and the remarkable resemblance of the gravid fe- 
males to minute eggs was again noted. Since that time this Pedic- 
uloides has been reported by Mr. E. M. Ehrhorn attacking the larvee 
of the peach twig borer, Anarsia lineatella Zell., in California.¢ 
The same year Mr. Marlatt reported it as attacking the eggs of the 
periodical cicada, Tibicen septendecom io The same year Dr. F. H. 
Chittenden® stated that this mite attacked the larve of two species 
of bean weevil (Bruchus quadrimaculatus Fab. and B. chinensis L.) 
and destroyed them, often in great numbers. Still later, in 1904, 
Messrs. W. D. Hunter and W. E. Hinds, in Bulletin No. 45, Division 
of Entomology, page 107, called attention to its attack on the larvee 
of the cotton boll weevil. In 1908 Mr. W. Dwight Pierce? stated 
that this mite is a common weevil parasite In Mexico. In the 
same publication, page 42, he credited it with being parasitic, not 
only on the cotton boll weevil, Anthonomus grandis, but also on an 
allied species, the pepper weevil (A. eugenii Cano). Dr. A. D. Hop- 
kins informs the writer that in his studies of forest insects he has 
encountered it attacking the larve of wood-boring beetles, and at 
one time, in West Virginia, it caused considerable mortality in his 
rearing cages, where he was attempting to rear wood-boring longi- 
corn beetles (Cerambycidee) and barkbeetles (Scolytidee), precisely 
as experienced by M. Jules Lichtenstein in France. 
a Bul. 10, Div. Ent., U. 8. Dept. Agr., p. 17, 1898. 
6 Bul. 14, n.s., Div. Ent., U.S. Dept. Agr., p. 104, 1898. 
¢U.S8. Dept. Agr., Yearbook for 1898, p. 247. 
d Bul. 73, Bur. Ent., U.S. Dept. Agr., p. 30. 
[Cir. 118] 
