TIIE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



25 



fly which he named Sigalphus curculionis, and which he believed was 

 [Fig. 7.] parasitic on the Curculio. Be- 



fore that time no parasite had 

 ever been known to attack 

 this pestilent little weevil, 

 id even up to the present 

 time it is currently believed 

 that no such parasite exists ; 

 for unfortunately the evidence 

 given by Dr. Fitch was not suf- 

 ficient to satisfy some of our 

 most eminent entomologists. These parasites were in fact received 

 by him from Mr. D. W. Beadle of St. Catherines, 0. W., who had bred 

 them from Black-knot, from which he bred at the same time a certain 

 number of Curculios ; but as other worms besides those of the Cur- 

 culio are likewise found in Black-knot, we had no absolute proof that 

 this fly was parasitic on the insect in question. Consequently we find 

 that Mr. Walsh, in his Keport as Acting State Entomologist of Illi- 

 nois, rather ridicules the idea of its being a Curculio parasite and en- 

 deavors to prove that it is parasitic instead on the larva of his Plum 

 Moth (Semasia prunivor a). But I have this year not only proved 

 that poor Walsh was himself wrong in this particular inference, but 

 that he was equally wrong in supposing his little Plum-moth, so 

 called, to be confined to plums; for I have bred it from Galls ( Quer- 

 cus frondosa, Bassett) ; from haws, from crab apples and abundantly 

 from tame apples. 



To be brief, Dr. Fitch's Sigalphus is a true parasite on the Plum 

 Curculio and I have bred hundreds of the flies from Curculio larvae. 

 The first bred specimens gave me much pleasure, for as soon as I saw 

 they belonged to the same genus as Dr. Fitch's fly, I felt assured that 

 another disputed question was settled. But to make assurance 

 doubly sure, I repeatedly half filled large jars with pure earth, finely 

 sifted so that no living animal remained in it. Into these jars I placed 

 Curculio larvae from day to day as they issued from peaches that 

 were thrown into another vessel, and in due time the parasitic flies 

 began to issue from the ground along with the perfect Curculios. Nay 

 more than this, I soon learned to distinguish such Curculio larvae as 

 were parasitised, and after they had worried themselves under the 

 ground — seldom more than half an inch — I would uncover them, and 

 on several occasions had the satisfaction of watching the gnawing 

 worm within reduce its victim until finely nothing was left of him. 

 [Fig- s.] As soon as the Curculio larva is de- 



stroyed by the parasite, the latter 

 (Fig. 8, a) encloses itself in a tough lit- 

 tle yellowish cocoon of silk (Fig. 8, 5), 

 then gradually assumes the pupa state 

 (Fig. 8, c) and at the end of about the 

 same length of time that the Curculio 



