THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



75 



Food haiuts of Ground-heetles. — 

 Prof. S. A. Forbes of Normal, 111., who is 

 devoting his time with such good results 

 to investigating the food-habits of birds, is 

 desirous of obtaining alcoholic specimens 

 of any Ground-beetles (Caraliidce) found in 

 situations suggesting herbivorous habits. 

 We bespeak attention to his request from 

 our collectors of Coleoptera. The speci- 

 mens may be either sent to us or to him 

 direct. Prof. F. finds that it is not at all 

 difficult to recognize the tissues of plants 

 in the intestines of herbivorous insects. 

 Spiral vessels, hairs and epidermal cells re- 

 sist digestion for a long time, and the cell 

 walls of the parenchyma can be demon- 

 strated by the test for cellulose. There is 

 no doubt but that the literature of eco- 

 nomic entomology is full of blunders due 

 to mistaken ideas respecting the purposes 

 for which insects visit plants. So far as 

 the Ground-beetles are concerned there 

 ought to be neither mistake nor uncertainty 

 as to their food-habits, because the useful- 

 ness of some of our common birds, now 

 protected by law, is bound up with the 

 usefulness of these beetles. 



Moths and Butterflies caught by 

 THE tongue. — In that excellent monthly, 

 the American Naturalist, an account was 

 recently given of the trapping of various 

 moths by the flowers of Physianthus aliens, 

 an Asclepiadaceous plant, native to Buenos 

 Ayres, but long cultivated by our florists 

 for its pretty white flowers and graceful, 

 climl;)ing habit. There is nothing new in 

 the account of the moth-trapping peculiar- 

 ities of this plant, which peculiarities we 

 have recorded in the Transactions of the 

 Academy of Science of St. Louis (Vol. Ill', 

 p. cxv). Quite a number of different spe- 

 cies of Noctuiche and more particularly 

 Agrotis incrmis and siihgothica and Ma- 

 mestra incincta are thus caught, and we 

 have succeeded in tracing the larval history 

 of the last named si)ecies from eggs ob- 

 tained from moths that had been so en- 

 trapped. The flutterings and struggles of 

 these small owlet moths to escape, do not 

 strike one as half so remarkable as those 



of the much larger Hawk-moths which, 

 notwithstanding their power of wing and 

 muscularity, in addition to their very long 

 tongue, attempt in vain to extricate them- 

 selves when once the tip of the tongue is 

 secured; for the harder they pull the firmer 

 is the grasp. If they escape it is almost 

 always at the expense of a broken proboscis. 

 We have seen as many as ten s]3ecimens of 

 the White-lined Morning Sphinx {Dcilepliila 

 lincata) either struggling or hanging dead 

 from the flowers of a single plant, and a 

 correspondent of Science Gossip, from Dart- 

 mouth, England, states in the November, 

 1878, number of that paper, that he con- 

 stantly found large Hawk-moths caught by 

 the proboscis in the flowers, the moths 

 dying in about ten minutes. Ncriiun ole- 

 ander is reported to entrap Hawk-moths in 

 Europe in a somewhat similar way, and 

 Qinothcra grandiflora to likewise catch them 

 by holding the tongue when wound around 

 the style below the stigma. Mr. William 

 Saunders of London, Ont., has found that 

 Bidens chrysanthemoides entraps Flower- 

 flies (genus Syrphus'). 



The Postmaster-General has rescinded 

 previous ruling of the Department which 

 excluded queen bees from the mails, 

 and they will now be carried, providing 

 they are secured in such manner that no 

 harm can come to persons handling the 

 mails. About a year ago entomologists 

 experienced much annoyance by the ruling 

 of the New York postmaster that speci- 

 mens mounted on pins were non-mailable, 

 but of late we have heard no complaint of 

 packages of mounted specimens being re- 

 jected or condemned, and it is to be hoped 



that a more reasonable spirit prevails. 



♦ — » 



Prof. Cyrus Thomas has expressed the 

 opinion that if we have a dry early summer 

 the Chinch Bug will be very troublesome 

 in the West the present year. 



Errata. — Page 30, col. 2, 1. 15, for "Beri- 

 planeta " read " Periplancta. Page 49, first 

 line after '' On our Table," for " Litophane " 

 read " Lithophane." Page 52, col. i, note, 

 for " IsniTvov" read "iSjKruov." 



