THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 130 



attacking- the leaf-hoppers of the Grape-vine, and it certainly could 

 not have done so in past years to the extent that it did at Rose Hill 

 last fall, without its work having been noticed. I have been through 

 vineyards by the hundred in the fall of the year, and never before 

 noticed such work. How are we then to account for its sudden ap- 

 pearance in such force in the vineyard of Dr. Spaulding ? To my 

 mind it is an excellen-t illustration of an insect acquiring a new habit. 

 Some individual or individuals wandering from the oaks and from 

 whatever food they there subsisted upon, came upon Dr. Spaulding's 

 vineyard and found the leaf-hoppers of the Vine to their taste. Their 

 food being abundant, they soon multiplied, so as to make their work 

 appreciable, and commenced to spread from one vineyard to another. 

 The facts in the case would support such a theory, for the bugs and 

 their slaughtered victims were found in diminishing numbers in the 

 vineyards in the immediate neighborhood until at the distance of 

 three miles, no sign of either could be found. Consequently, though 

 our little cannibal friend occurs sparingly throughout the country in 

 the native timber, it is found in the cultivated vineyard in a limited 

 district only, so far as we now know. But there is no reason why the 

 field of its operations in the vineyard should not in time become co- 

 extensive with that of the troublesome leaf-hoppers; and with our 

 present mail facilities we can materially help to make it so by arti- 

 ficially introducing a few dozen of the living bugs from one vineyard 

 to another. 



This species was first described by Say as Capsus vitripermis* The Plujtocorida-, as the name- 

 indicates, have all been hitherto considered as plant-feeders, and at first the species above con- 

 sidered would appear to be an exception to the unity of habit in the family. But Mr. Uhler in- 

 forms me that his investigations of the elong-ated forms of many of the recently established genera 

 have taught him that the affinities of many of them are largely with the Reduviidce through An- 

 thocorida ; for he has often found them in places where small caterpillars were nua^erous ; among 

 the larva; of Tinrjidce, and has even caught them in the act of sucking the juices of plant-lice. 



