396 



dug up 18 or 20 inches below the surface. I think they are a species of "beetle," 

 but no one here can classify them. I am anxious to know what they really are. 

 They are all alive and doing well at this writing. Please let me hear from you. If 

 there is any pay would be glad to get it. The nest or lodging place sent you will 

 show how the bugs winter and feed, The one without nippers I thii^k is female, the 

 others males. — [John M. Leavell, Culpeper, Virginia, March 11, 1891. 



Reply. — * * * The beetle which you send is the Rhinoceros Beetle {Dunastes 

 <i<^Ms), which breeds in dead and decaying wood. * * *— [March, 1891.] 



A Codling Moth Larva in March. 



I venture to obtrude on your attention what I believe to be a curious find. Of the 

 facts as I recite them I am positive of the smallest detail. While eating an apple this 

 afternoon I bit out a large piece and laid bare a dark worm in the usual groove. I 

 removed the piece and cut out the upper part of his groove which came away with 

 the bite. Noticing that it left a clean, sound surface I looked for a moment expect- 

 ing Mr. Worm to make tracks toward the core, but he did not move. I then took my 

 knife and cut out his groove and him with it, cleaning out each end of the groove 

 expecting to find a hole to the core, as usual, but was astonished to encounter clean, 

 solid apple at each end of his recess with something of a resemblance to a hard scar 

 at the blossom end of his groove. The ends of his groove both projected into the 

 apple as first laid open, for it was nearly on a plane with the meridian and parallel 

 to the surface of the apple. I send the worm, with a portion of the groove, under 

 separate cover. I noticed at first several coarse white filaments similar to gray 

 hairs, and I wondered if it were possible for an egg to have been deposited in the 

 solid meat of the apple instead of in the core by a misdirected thrust of an ovipositor 

 and the wound to have healed up, hence the scar in the solid meat, the egg to hatch 

 in it, the worm to die before getting to the open air. — [E. D. Wileman, Secretary 

 and Treasurer of Ohio Society of Surveyors and Civil Engineers, Massaillou, Ohio, 

 March 11, 1891. 



Reply. — The "worm" is evidently a two-thirds grown Codling Moth larva, and its 

 presence on the apple in this condition, at this season of the year, is unusual though not 

 unprecedented. It is a larva from the second brood of moths, and so great is the 

 irregularity in the time of appearance of the second brood that eggs are frequently 

 laid as late as September or the first of October. The larvie naturally develop much 

 more slowly in cold weather than in warm, and consequently many are very small 

 when winter apples are picked in the late fall. The eggs of the second brood are 

 often laid upon the side of the apple instead of upon tlie fiower, aud the larvte pen- 

 etrate the flesh immediately after hatching and are then so small that the opening 

 which they leave is not noticeable, and in fact is usually completely closed by the 

 subsequent growth of the apple. The white filaments "similar to grey hairs" were 

 probably threads of silk spun by the larva. There is, then, nothing very unusual 

 in this observation, but your account of it is interesting and the late finding of the 

 larva is worthy of record. — [March 26, 1891.] 



Dipterous Larvae Vomited by a Child. 



I send by mail to-day a specimen of some kind of larva of Diptera, as I suppose. 

 These with hundreds of others were vomited by a child of 18 months of age, last De- 

 cember. There is no doubt of their origin as they were thrown up while the physi- 

 cian was in the room. The Annual of Universal Medical Sciences, 1890, Vol. i, p. 23, 

 is the only literature on the subject I have found. 



I sent these specimens to Professor Leidy, of Philadelphia, who writes me that 

 they are undoubtedly larvae of some Dip^jora, but is unable to identify the species and 

 refers me to you. 



I had a beautiful glycerine specimen, but a friend has smashed it in examination. 

 I hope the balsam specimen will be sufficieut to enable you to identify the species. 



