THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



21 



last — the chalybea of Illiger — has been long known to in- 

 fest the vine, but it attacks the young buds more than 

 the leaves, and it would scarcely be called a " very small 

 insect," being about three-sixteenths of an inch long. 



Some years ago, specimens of vine-leaves were sent to 

 me from Missouri, covered all over with small, brown, 

 dead spots, which had been caused by the Tettigonia vitis, 

 and one or two other species belonging to the same genus; 

 and it was stated that these insects had in this manner 

 utterly ruined many vines in that State. But there is a 

 wide difference between brown spots and holes in a leaf. 

 I do not believe that the true Thrips of entomologists 

 are, as has hitherto been universally believed, vegetable 

 feeders; but that on the contrary, they are cannibal in- 

 sects, preying upon injurious larvae, and therefore the 

 friends and not the foes of the Agriculturist. The curious 

 reader will find my reasons for this belief in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Entomological Society, (III. pp. 611 — 61.3). 

 But it is possible that I may be wrong, and that the vine- 

 growers are right. In any case it is highly desirable 

 that specimens of this foe to the vine be forwarded to the 

 Society, that it may be determined who and what he is. 

 Until that is done, we are only groping in the dark. Be- 

 cause an insect is popularly called a Thrips, it by no means 

 follows that it is really a Thrips. Farmers very generally 

 call all Beetles " Bugs." And yet, although every Farmer 

 in the United States should persist in calling Beetles 

 " Bugs" till the year 1900, still that will not make them 

 Bugs. 



Let me impress once more upon the minds of the Farm- 

 ers, that when they send specimens they should enclose 

 them in a stout paste-board box — a gun-cap box for ex- 

 ample — and put in enough cotton-wool or some other such 

 substance, to prevent their rattling themselves to pieces 

 in Uncle Sam's mail-bags. For lack of these precautions, 

 I have often received specimens pressed as flat as a pan- 

 cake or broken into a hundred pieces. A farmer would 

 stare, if he was asked to determine the particular variety 

 of wheat — whether Mediterranean, or Tea, or Club, or 

 whatever else it might be — from examining a handful of 

 bran. An orchardist would smile, if he was asked to de- 

 termine the particular variety of Peach, from inspecting 

 a sack of the dried fruit. And yet they often expect En- 

 tomologists to decide, from inspecting a mass of shapeless 

 fragments, to which of the 30,000 species of insects, that 

 inhabit the United States, those shapeless fragments for- 

 merly appertained. 

 Bock Island, III., Nov. 21, 1865. 



Tha WoolyAppIe-trae Blight.— Eriosomalanigera, Harris. 



Dr. Harris, in his account of this insect says, on the 

 authority of Hausmann and Knapp, that it never acquires 

 wings, and supposes that it spreads from tree to tree by 

 being blown by the winds, the long tufts of downy matter 

 attached to its body forming a sort of parachute. Mr. 

 Walsh, in an excellent article on plant-lice, {Proc. Ent. 

 Soc Phil. Vol. 1, p. 303) also alludes to the uncertainty in 

 regard to its having wings at any time, and their struc- 

 ture; for although Westwood attributes wings to the genus, 

 his description does not apply to the wings of closely al- 

 lied species, nor, as I have been able to ascertain, to this 

 species, which is the type of the genus. Mr. Walsh, how- 

 ever, describes the wings of a wooly plant-louse, inhabit- 

 ing mushrooms, and Mr. Fitch several species inhabiting 

 various trees, all of which acquire wings at certain times, 



having similar structure to the wings of the apple-tree 

 wooly-louse. 



The importance of ascertaining definitely whether the 

 females of noxious insects are winged or not, must be suf- 

 ficiently apparent to every one, since their manner of in- 

 crease and diffusion depends directly upon this point, and 

 our remedies must be modified accordingly. This is well 

 illustrated by the differences in the habits of two of our 

 worst insects, and the remedies suitable to be applied to 

 them. The Canker-worm has a wingless female which 

 is obliged to crawl up the tree or fence nearest her plane 

 of birth to deposit her eggs, while the Tent-Caterpillar 

 having, when mature, both females and males furnished 

 with strong wings, the females are able to place their 

 large clusters of eggs on any trees they may reach by 

 flight, thus spreading much more rapidly. 



It gives me pleasure, therefore, to be able to determine 

 this point in the present instance. Having frequently 

 examined a small apple-tree badly infested by this insect, 

 both on the main stem and branches, during the past 

 autumn, I found, about the middle of October, among the 

 wingless neuters (or budding individuals), a large number 

 of both males and females having well formed and rather 

 large wings, but in other respects closely resembling the 

 rest, except that they had but little of the downy sub- 

 stance on their bodies, which were nearly black and ra- 

 ther plump. The fore wings were large and had three 

 discal veins, the third one forked near the middle and 

 scarcely visible near its base before forking. The stigma 

 or colored spot was about three times as long as broad, 

 and acute at each end. The hind wings were about half 

 as long as the others, and quite narrow, with two simple 

 discal veins. 



It is evident, therefore, that this species agrees with 

 others of the genus both in structure and habits, and that 

 the winged females appearing late in the fall are able to 

 fly from tree to tree in order to deposit her eggs for another 

 generation to be hatched the next spring, thus providing 

 for the rapid increase and diffusion of this pest. This 

 fact should cause all fruit growers to take particular pains 

 to destroy these lice wherever found, for the colony that 

 is this year allowed to increase upon some worthless tree 

 or the shoots and suckers from its base, will furnish the 

 winged mothers of countless myriads that muf infest the 

 most choice trees next year. 



Another point that I do not remember to have seen 

 mentioned in the history of this insect is its remarkable 

 power of enduring the cold of winter and severe storms 

 of rain and snow with comparative impunity. The small 

 tree already alluded to is still (Dec. 11) covered along the 

 under sides of all the branches with healthy and active 

 lice of all sizes, busily engaged in sucking its sap, although 

 we have had two snow storms and many cold rains and 

 freezing nights. Doubtless many of these insects will 

 thus survive the winter, especially when in the crevices 

 and wounded places where they delight to establish them- 

 selves. The downy or cottony substance that usually 

 covers them abundantly is often nearly all removed by 

 wind and rain, but another supply is rapidly produced. 

 This may serve to protect them, in some degree, from 

 cold as well as from the summer heat. That this species 

 may thus survive the winter is the more probable since I 

 have observed another allied species living upon the red- 

 alder at various times throughout the winter in Maine, 

 even upon the exposed surfaces of the trunk and branches. 



A. E. VERRILL. 



New Haven, Conn., Dec. 11, 1865. 



