208 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
The regular Joint-worm (Isosoma hordei, Harris) was sent in June by 
Mr. 8S. O. Dean, of Grantville, N. C., as seriously injuring wheat in 
that locality. The Asparagus beetle (Cicoceris asparagi, L.) came about 
the same time from Suffolk County, New York, where Mr. Geo. D. 
Post, of Quogue, reported it as very serious. The Cottony maple 
seale (Pulvinaria tanumerabilis, Rathvon), an insect that has been ex- 
tremely troublesome to maples and other shade trees in the more north- 
em States, has been sent from as far south as Louisville, Ky., by Mr. 
J. B. Nall. The Cabbage maggot (Anthomyia brassicw, Bouché) has 
proved very destructive in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, according to 
R. W. Cox, of Providence, who sent specimens. An interesting scale- 
insect, sent by Mr. Joseph Cohen, of Charleston, 8S. C., has proved quite 
injurious to the fig, covering leaves, branches, and fruit. It is a new 
species of J/ytilaspis, closely allied to the well-known Muscle-shell bark- 
louse of the apple, and will doubtless prove a serious interference with 
fig culture. Thousands of apple trees have been defoliated in parts of 
Pennsylvania by a little pistol-like case-bearer, belonging to the genus 
Coleophora, never before reported as injurious, and new to science; while 
several interesting communications relative to the same have been re- 
ceived from Mr. Wm. Fairweather, of the Densmore Apple Farm in Me- 
Kean County. Similarly extensive young apple orchards belonging to 
Mr. W. W. Adams, of Waukon, Iowa, have been ravaged and almost 
destroyed by another new Lepidopterous insect, namely, a species of 
Tortrix. Still another new apple-leaf pest, which proves upon rearing 
to be the Phoxopteris nubeculana of Clemens, has been received from Mr. 
O. C. Chapin, of Bloomfield, N. Y., where it has proved very injurious. 
Mr. Gustavus Pauls, of Eureka, Mo., had his corn seriously damaged 
at the roots by the larva of a little beetle (Diabrotica longicornis, Say.) 
that was not before known to have any such habits. Twigs of the tea 
plant badly infested with a bark-louse (Ceroplastes rusci, Linn.) have 
been received from Mr. L. H. Tallman, of Mandarin, Duval County, 
Florida. A borer affecting the roots of raspberries and blackberries 
(Torchilium rubi, Riley) was reported as doing much damage in Stanley 
County, North Carolina, by Mr. I. G. Kron, of Albemarle. <A sugar- 
cane borer (Diatrea sacchari, Gould), first mentioned as injurious m the 
island of Mauritius in the year 1836, but not before recorded as occur- 
ring in this country, though figured on one of Professor Glover’s unpub- 
lished plates, was received from Mr. Wm. Pugh, of Assumption, La. 
One of the commonest flower-beetles (Huryomia inda) has been received 
from several correspondents as attacking green corn—a habit which the 
species was not before known to possess, and which has, beyond much 
doubt, been recently acquired. A well-known cottonwood borer (Sa- 
perda calcaraia, Say.) that is proving very destructive in Kansas, Ne- 
braska, and other Western States, has been received from Mr. J. Sav- 
age, of Lawrence, Kans., and others; while from the Pacific Slope have 
come serious complaints of a new insect that is killing many of the or- 
chard and ornamental trees of that section of the country. Specimens 
received from Mr. A. W. Saxe, of Santa Clara, Cal., show it to be a 
species of Dorthesia, an abnormal bark-louse (family Coccid@). It is 
an Australian insect (apparently D. characias, Westw.), and has of late 
years been introduced on Australian plants into South Africa, where, as 
IT learn from one of my correspondents, Mr. Roland Trimen, curator of 
the South African Museum, it has multiplied at a terrible rate and be- 
come such a scourge as to attract the attention of the government. It 
has evidently been introduced (probably on the Blue Gum or Hucalyptus) 
