76 



Ducks and the Colorado Potato Beetle ; Additional Note. 



In Insect Life, vol. iii, No. 9-lU, page 390, I find an article on Ducks and the Col- 

 orado Potato Beetle. I -wish to add a little experience of last year in my garden, 

 where I had a small patch of potatoes. In this patch my two ducks and one drake were 

 very partial and not one of the Philistines (bugs) could he found. We thought they 

 bad left for better clover feed, but on reading the article in Insect Life I think it 

 is another proof of the duck's usefulness in that field of labor or directiou.— [Johu 

 Taylor, New Sharon, Me., July 14, 1891. 



Kerosene Emulsion Treatment for the Rose Chafer. 



Having another year's experience with the Rose Chafer, I will relate it for the ben- 

 efit of others. Last year, as I wrote yon, I found shaking on stretchers saturated 

 with crude petroleum the only eliective remedy. This year I experimented with a 

 preparation called sludgite, a combination of petroleum and soap. Fouud it of no 

 avail. Then I prepared a lot of kerosene emulsion, 2 gallons of oil, 1 gallon of water, 

 one-half pound common soap. First to test it I caught a number of the bugs, dipped 

 them in the emulsion and found that every one died in a few minutes. I tried dip- 

 ping in the sludgite solution and found that it did not kill them. Then I diluted 

 the emulsion, one part of emulsion to eight parts of water. Found by dipping it was 

 just as effective in killing the bugs as the standard emulsion. I sprayed my vines 

 and fouud it killed some and disturbed all. Thinking this might not be effective, I 

 discontinued on grape vines, but found a lot of cherry trees and peach trees infested 

 with them. I sprayed about twenty cherry trees from which hundreds of bugs could 

 have been picked, and was so successful that after two sprayings not a bug could be 

 found; neither did they trouble the trees, either peach or cherry, again. I am in- 

 clined to think we may have an eftective remedy in the emulsion, and I think it will 

 be more eflective when warmed.— [E. H. Wyukoop, Catskill, N. Y., July 31, 1891. 



The Strawberry "Weevil on Blackberries. 



I inclose a few Curculionids that are proving quite destructive to the buds of 

 Ijlackberries (especially of the Wachusett variety) about here. I find nothing about 

 any such pest m the literature of my own library. Can you give me the name or any 

 references? — [George Dimmock, Canobie Lake, N. H., June 15, 1891. 



IlEPLY. — This is a species commonly known in collections as Anthonomtis muscuJun 

 and which I have treated in my report for 1885 under the caption of "Strawberry 

 Weevil." You will find a somewhat elaborate article in this report on pages 276 to 

 282, while the species is illustrated on Plate 7 at Figs. 5 and 6. — [June 18, 1891.] 



Predaceous Habit of Histeridae. 



All of the authors which I have been able to consult upon the habits of Histeridse 

 (Packard, Harris, Le Baron, and Horn) state that these insects live in excrements, in 

 decayed animal or vegetable matter, beneath the bark of trees, in ants' nests, and so 

 on, but none of them even so much as hint at their predaceous habits. A few weeks 

 ago I saw an adult Hister sexstriaius Lee. attack a nearly full-grown larva oi Agrotis 

 ypsilon Kott., seizing it with its jaws as a cat would a rat and holding on despite the 

 attempts of the cut-worm to escape. This was late in the afternoon of a cloudy day. 

 and as my time was limited, I placed both specimens in my cyanide bottle, where 

 the unequal combat soon terminated. — [D. W. Coquillett, Los Angeles, CaL, June 

 8, 1891. 



