24 



rare insects, nature occasionally concentrates it in considerable num- 

 bers for a particular object upon a particular point, i. e., the fruit- 

 bearing grapevine. For ten years I have been collecting insects in 

 various parts of Illinois. I have in that time beaten into my net 

 thousands of wild grapevines, to say nothing of forest trees growing 

 in their immediate neighborhood. Yet in all those ten years I never 

 captured but two poor solitary specimens of my newly-discovered 

 little friend, the Grape Curculio. Moreover, Dr. J. L. LeConte tells 

 me that, imtil I supplied him with some additional specimens, he had 

 but two representatives of this species in his whole collection of N. A. 

 Beetles, which, so far as regards the number of species, is well known 

 to be the most extensive of any in the country. 



It is, indeed, undoubtedly true that, if a vineyardist is sur- 

 rounded by other grajje-growers and all their vines are infested by 

 this Curculio, it will be comparatively but little use for him to destroy 

 the Curculio upon his own vines, unless he can also persuade his 

 neighbors to do the same. For his little black enemy has got good 

 long black wings of his own, and can fly with ease from one vineyard 

 to another, although undoubtedly he is not by any means as strong 

 on the wing and as fond of flying as a Bee or a Butterfly. Still, this 

 only proves the absolute necessity of fruit-growers becoming familiar 

 with the habits of their insect foes, and of their making war upon 

 them systematically and generally. For attaining these two objects, 

 nothing can be more practically useful, than those organized Asso- 

 ciations of practical and intelligent fruit-growers, which are now 

 happily becoming so common in all the great fruit-growing regions 

 of the United States. 



INSECTS; INFESTING THE GRAPE— On the Leaf. 



CHAPTER II. — The Grape-leaf Gall-louse. {Dactylosphwra* vitifolice, 



Fitch.) 



This is the insect which Dr. Fitch described long ago under the 

 above specific name, though it most certainly does not belong "to the 

 genus of Plant-lice {Pemphigus) to which he referred it, nor even, 

 in my opinion, to the Plant-louse Family, but rather to the Bark-lice. 

 It causes on the lower surface of the leaves of the grapevine immense 



*Tlie genus, Dactylosphwra was jjioposed by Dr. H. Shimer, of Mt. Car- 

 roll, Illinois, in a short Paper, published in Proc. Acad. Nat. Sc, Jan., 1867, 

 pp. 1 — 9. I adopt this generic name, simply because the group of insects to 

 which this species belongs, forms, in my opinion, a very distinct and a very 

 anomalous genus of the Bark-louse (Coccus) Family, and there is no other 

 name for it extant. \Yhvthis genus of Insects ought to be referred to the Bark- 



