REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 4G1 



lately is that in reference to the Southern Buffalo Gnats. The los3 

 occasioned by the attacks of these upon domestic animals has been 

 of late years very great, and the Division has been strongly appealed 

 to by influential stock-raisers in the lower Mississippi Valley for infor- 

 mation. Messrs. F. M. Webster, Otto Lugger, and Francis Fillion 

 have each been directed to make special investigations and experi- 

 ments during the year in different j)arts of the South, and Dr. War- 

 ren King, of "Vicksburg, has aided in various ways. At the time when 

 these investigations began the particular species concerned had not 

 been determined; nor was anything known of their habits in the 

 early stages. These habits were surmised from what was known of 

 other species of the genus both in this country and Europe, which, as 

 a rule, breed in clear, rapid, and rocky streams; but it was a ques- 

 tion how our Southern species could breed so numerously in the lower 

 alhivial Mississipj)i country. 



It results from the investigation that there are more particularly 

 concerned two species, which may be knovf n and distinguished as the 

 Southern Buffalo Gnat (the larger and more common of the species) 

 and the Turkey Gnat, the names by which they are very generally 

 known in the country affected. They are both undescribed species, 

 and I have given them the names of Simulium pecuarum and S. 

 meridionale respectively. The habits of both species are similar, 

 and both have been found to breed in the more swiftly running currents 

 of bayous and larger streams which are j^ermanent and do not dry 

 up in midsummer. The larv£B are found attached to the masses of 

 drift-wood and leaA^es which form at points, and which, by impedi- 

 ment, induce a more rapid current on the surface. Very full de- 

 tails will be found in the article, and at its close I have discussed the 

 bearing which seasons of overflow may possibly have on the increase of 

 these insects. Much yet remains to be ascertained, however, espe- 

 cially as to oviposition, the eggs, and the early habits of the larvse. 



Another insect that will be found fully treated of is the common 

 Fall Web-worm {Hyphantria cunea), which abounded during the 

 past year in the Eastern States in a phenomenal way, and which was 

 so destructive to the shade trees of the Capital as to attract an un- 

 usual share of attention and to call forth many requests for informa- 

 tion. Many facts hitherto unpublished, both as to its habits and 

 natural enemies, will be found recorded, while advantage has been 

 taken of the very favorable opportunity afforded by the exceptional 

 increase of the species in Washington City to carefully study its rela- 

 tive preference for different trees. I have already published in my 

 report for the year 1883, and in Bulletin 6 of this Division, in consid- 

 ering the Imported Elm Leaf -beetle, full directions for protecting 

 trees from leaf -devouring insects, and as it is inadvisable to repeat 

 what is already accessible in published form, I have given but a brief 

 summary of the means available for protecting trees from this Fall 

 Web-worm. Moreover, the spraying appliances that are most useful 

 against the scale-insects, and treated of in considering the Cottony 

 Cushion-scale of California, are equally applicable here, and in so 

 far as they differ from those already described and published in pre- 

 vious reports they will be found treated of in connection with said 

 scale. So far as the city of Washington is concerned (and the same 

 will apply to all cities) there can be little doubt that the great in- 

 crease of this Fall Web-worm of late years has been largely due to 

 two circumstances: First, the prevalence of the English Sparrow and 

 its indisposition or inability to feed upon this worm, while making 



