137 



be saweil offuud burned before the larvtu have matured. If concerted action on the 

 part of owners of cocoanut trees could be obtained, this method woukl no doubt 

 materially contribute toward a diminution in the number of the beetles and a con- 

 sequent lessening of the damage to the cocoanut trees. — [September 25, 1891.] 



Rhynchites bicolor injuring Cultivated Roses. 



I forward specimens of Coleoptera which are pi'oving very injurious to our roses. 

 I have not known this insect as a rose pest before. The beetle can be frequentlj- 

 caught with its long proboscis buried deep in the rosebud, and it also seems to cut 

 the stem, or otherwise injure the bud .just at the thin part of the stalk below the 

 calyx, and afterwards the bud droops, hangs its head, and dries up. I send you a 

 quantity of the injured l)uds of three kinds of rose for examination, and I shall feel 

 obliged for any information regarding this enemy of our beautiful flowers. I have 

 not seen the insect upon anything but roses. — [Arthur Boyle, New Mexico, .Tune 22, 

 1891. 



Reply. — The insect which is damaging your roses is a weevil known as Rhynchitea 

 bicolor. An insect of this same genus is found upon roses in England, and this may 

 be the species which you have seen. It will be difficult to suggest a remedy without 

 knowing the breeding habits of the insect. At this distance it will be impossible to 

 advise you on this point. The early habits of the species are not known to entomol- 

 ogists. If you can find where the female lays her eggs and where the larvae develop 

 you may be able to find a remedy. — [July 3, 1891.] 



The Coleoptera in the National Museum. 



With this I mail you a box containing 27 species and 57 specimens, mostly Coleop- 

 tera that I noticed were lacking or but poorly represented in your collection. I 

 will contribute more if you wish (in all orders). * * * j y^m \)q gijid to con- 

 tribute more material and try to make your collection a ''Mecca" for students. 

 During my visit to Washington the collection afforded me real satisfaction, enabling 

 me to correct some errors in my own series. There are larger collections than 

 yours, but if they are so perfect and in such order and so carefully guarded that it 

 is dangerous to touch them for fear of breaking something, and so crowded that 

 one can not get a specimen out to examine, then a student must hunt another place, 

 ■which your collection bids fair to supply. Your North American Coleoptera seem 

 to be very accurately named, which is a I'efreshing rarity as compared with other 

 public collections, and I hope you will get all the types, as you seem to have the 

 hest place for them in the United States. — [Charles Dury, Ohio, June 6, 1891. 



A good Collection of Agrilus at the National Museum. 



I have this day sent to the National Museum the Agrilus, every specimen as \t 

 me all carefully scrutinized and correctly named after careful comparison with the 

 Le Conte types. 



The collection is a very good one — really better than the Le Conte collection, and 

 in numbers quite equal to that of Ulke and therefore second only to mine. — [George 

 H. Horn, Pennsylvania, August 13, 1891. 



A Leaf-miner infesting Sour G-um. 



Inclosed herewith I send you some leaves of Nyssa or Sour Gum. Every leaf on 

 the tree was infested by this "Leaf-miner." I saw the tree August 6 for the first 

 time in Glens Falls, N. Y., and then observed that all the leaves on the tree (there 

 is but one in Glens Falls), were infested by this insect. I once found in Apios tube' 

 rosa a larva that looked like this. I had the good fortune to see the oval holes 

 made by the insect. The cut was made by a swinging of the head from side to 

 side, depressed and then elevated ; then the convex edges of the cut were brought 



