70 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OP 



it greatly injured the cucumbers and melons around that place; and 

 Mr. Glover, of the Department of Agriculture, informs me that he has 

 found the worm on Squash, in Florida, in July. Thus it appears that 

 this Pickle Worm has a wide range, and that last summer it simul- 

 taneously fell upon the cucumbers and melons in widely different 

 parts of the country. Of course, in making pickles, the worm is 

 pickled with the cucumber, and we shall consequently continue to 

 hear startling stories about the worms in the pickles. 



This insect, so far as I can ascertain, has never before been fig- 

 gured or described in this country; nor can I find any mention made 

 of its destructive work in past years. I am, therefore, led to the con- 

 clusion that it was never numerous or destructive enough in the past, 

 to attract attention. This fact becomes the more astonishing, when 

 we consider how wide-spread and general its injuries were the past 

 summer; and it furnishes another illustration of thesudden and enor- 

 mous increase, in some particular year, of an insect which had 

 scarcely ever before been noticed. 



The system of Nature is so complicated, and every animal organ- 

 ism is subject to so many influences that affect its increase or de- 

 crease, that we are not surprised at the fluctuation in the relative 

 numbers of any particular species. The " Struggle for Life," as ex- 

 pounded by Darwin, is no where more effectual in bringing about 

 changes than in insect life. We are at first a little puzzled to ac- 

 count for the sudden advent, and the equally sudden departure of 

 such insects as the Army-worm, Chinch Bug, Wheat Midge, etc., but 

 when we once acquire a just conception of the tangled web in which 

 every insect is involved, we wonder rather that the balance is so well 

 kept. 



Our Pickle-worm is an indigenous species, and has, doubtless, 

 existed in some part or other of the country from time immemorial ; 

 and now that its habits are recorded and its history made known, I 

 should not be at all surprised to learn that individuals have suffered 

 from it in years gone by. The French Entomologist, Guen£e, gives 

 as its food-plant, a species of potato, and it is just possible that it may 

 not always have fed upon the same plants on which it was found last 

 summer. At all events, let us hope that it will disappear as suddenly 

 as it appeared ; but should it occur in great numbers again next year, 

 the foregoing account will enable those who grow melons, cucum- 

 bers or squashes, to understand their enemy, and to nip the evil in 

 the bud, by carefully overhauling their vines early in the summer, 

 and destroying the first worms that appear, either by feeding the in- 

 fested fruit to hogs or cattle, or by killing the worms on the spot. I 

 know from experience that this worm when pickled with the cucum- 

 ber, does not in the least affect its taste, and is not in the least inju- 

 rious to the human system ; but as it is not very desirable food, pickles 

 should always be halved, before being brought to the table, especially 

 if they were gathered from a field or garden known to be infested. 



