34 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



ANSWERS TO COREESPONDENTS. 



B. Parnell, N. Y. — You send the moulted skins of some 

 elongate, six-legged, brown larvte, abont one-third of an 

 inch long, and with a little bunch of hairs on their tails, 

 which, as you say, have neorly destroyed all the feathers 

 in a feather bed. They belong to the Order of Beclks 

 (Coleoptera) and to the Family Dcrmcstcs. and probably 

 to the genus Atfaycnus in that family, several species of 

 which are very destructive to hides and feathers. In the 

 perfect or winged form they are dark-colored, oval in- 

 sects, of a hard, shelly substance, like most other Beetles, 

 and most likely you found some of them either dead or 

 alive among the feathers, without suspecting them to be 

 merely the perfect form of the lively larvae that did the 

 mischief. 



You say you have tried tobacco, camphor, Ac, and ex- 

 posure to the hot rays of a July sun, by way of remedy, 

 without effect. That we can readily believe. You can 

 generally get rid of the diU'erent kinds of moths that in 

 the larva state destroy furs, hides, carpets, woollen clothes, 

 &c., by such means as these; but Iha Bermcsles family 

 are peculiarly "hard cases," as most Entomologists know 

 to their cost, and though camphor will generally prevent 

 their founding a new colony, it will not break up the 

 colony after it is already founded. Your only remedy is 

 heat, applied in such a way as not to injure the substance 

 on which they prey, and yet to be sufficient to destroy 

 insect life either in the egg, larva or perfect state. Im- 

 mersion in boiling, water lulfils these conditions. And 

 with this object in view, if you have any factory in your 

 neighborhood that boils water in large, open vats, head 

 up your feather bed in a tight, and perfectly dry barrel, 

 and immerse the whole in a vat of boiling water (lager- 

 beer would do equally well, if hot enough) for half an 

 hour. If you have no such convenience, your only re- 

 medy will be to treat the feathers and the bed-tick in the 

 same way in small parcels at a time, or to bake them in 

 an oven. But in this last case, you have to be very care- 

 ful not to heat your oven too hot, and yet to have it hot 

 enough to kill your enemies. Whichever mode you em- 

 ploy, make the ticking of your bed as tight as possible, 

 after you are through, so as to prevent any stray Attage- 

 nus from working his way in and founding a new colony. 



If you think both these methods too much trouble, you 

 had best burn your bed at once; for the insects, if left to 

 themselves, will eat it all up in a year or two — such are 

 their powers of multiplication — and then start on a voyage 

 of discovery for something else to work on. 



Thirty years ago, a species belonging to this saute fa- 

 mily — the Dermestes vutpinus — was found to be so ruia- 

 ously destructive in the great hide-warehouses in the 

 city of London, England, that the hide-merchants offered 

 a reward of $100,000 to any one who could discover a 

 cheap and effectual remedy to get rid of them. We be- 

 lieve the reward was never earned. The hot-water cure, 

 though effectual enough, was not sufficiently cheap. 



Isaac Hicks, N.Y. — The "small white maggot" which. 

 as you say, "perforates your apples and sometimes ren- 

 ders them of no value to use or to sell," is most probably 

 the larva of the well-known Codling moth (Carpocapsa 

 pomonella), which was originally, like many other noxious 

 insects, imported from Europe, and within the last year 

 or two has been very abundant and destructive, not only 

 on the Atlantic seaboard, but also in the Valley of the 

 Mississippi. Its history may be thus briefly told. The 

 moth deposits its egg in the eye (or bloom end) of the 

 apple, and the larva hatching out therefrom burrows into 

 the heart or core of the apple and feeds on its substance. 

 When full grown, i. e. about half an inch long, it bores a 

 passage way out for itself, sometimes along the same road 

 that it came in by, sometimes through the cheek of the 

 apple, thereby making a brown, discolored hole about the 

 size of a crow-quill. Before it is finally ready to come 

 out. the apple infested by it usually, but not always, 

 falls to the ground. Soon after this it changes into the 

 pupa state, having first spun for itself a thin, gauzy co- 

 coon in the chinks of the bark or other such appropriate 

 hiding-place. The moth comes out from the pupa in June 

 and July, when it lays its eggs for a second brood in the 

 half-grown apples, the pupae of which do not come out 

 into the moth state till the following spring, at which 

 time the next year's crop of apples is just beginning to 

 grow. You will find a figure and description of the moth 



in Harris's Injurious Insects, pp. 484-5. It is a beautiful 

 little insect, with a large patch of burnished copper on 

 its wings, and it is a pity that being so beautiful it should 

 be so mischievous. 



The most effectual remedy is to pick up and destroy all 

 the wormy apples as soon as they fall from the trees, as 

 mostof these, though not all. still contain the living larva, 

 no matter whether they are bored or not. It is also stated 

 that, by wrapping any old rag round the the tree, the 

 larvee will gather into it to spin their cocoons, when ©f 

 course they must be treated as the Western folks treat 

 horse-thieves, i.e. made to promise not to do so anymore. 



Strictly speaking, the larva is not a "maggot," as you 

 call it, but a " caterpillar," for it has got sixteen legs and 

 a large horny head, whereas the terra "maggot" is pro- 

 perly applied only to larvte such as those of the common 

 blow-fly, which have no distinct horny head and no legs 

 at all. If you find your larvse are really and truly "mag- 

 gots," send us specimens ne.xt summer; but we expect, 

 like many other men, you have conlounded the two terms. 



J. H. Foster, Jr., Penna. — You think that the AphU that 

 causes warts or knots on the roots of young apple trees in 

 the Nursery, and thereby renders them unsaleable, is the 

 same insect as the Woolb/ Aphis that lives on the twigs. 

 You are undoubtedly mistaken, for they do not even he- 

 long to the same genus, much less to the same species. 

 The Woolly Aphis is Eriosntna lanigera ; the Appie-root 

 Aphis is Pemphigus pj/ri. If you examine the winged in- 

 sects, you will find that the former always has the third 

 vein that branches from the main rib-vein in its front 

 vf'in^s forked, while the latter always has this same vein 

 perfectly simple. In the true genu?i Aphis, to which apper- 

 tains the common Leaf Aphis of the Apple, this same vein 

 is three-forked. You will find afigure illustrating the dif- 

 ferences between the different genera oSlhe Aphis family 

 in our Proceedings, Vol. 1. p. 297. 



Wm. Manlius Smith, N. Y. — What you take to be young 

 plant-lice hatched out in the winter from eggs, are not 

 plant-lice, nor even true insects of any kind, but a kind 

 of Mite often found under the bark of trees, where it pro- 

 bably feeds upon the partly decayed matter which occurs 

 in such situations. All true insects have si.v legs and a 

 head distinct from the thorax. The class Arachnida, to 

 which the Mites, the Spiders and the Wood-tieliS ( but not 

 the Sheep-tick, which is a true insect) ippertain. differs 

 from the true insects in having eight legs and no separa- 

 tion between the head and thorax. The specimens you 

 sent along with the piece of bark arrived in good order, 

 and all alive and kicking. 



You can find what are really the eggs of the Apple 

 plant-louse on the outside of the twigs of apple-trees. 

 They are quite small, oval, shining, black objects, about 

 the size of tobacco or poppy seed, and are generally inter- 

 mixed with some fine woolly matter which probably serves 

 to fasten them to the twig. Towards the spring those on 

 the upper side of the twig are very generally washed away 

 by the weather. As you are probably aware, these eggs 

 are only laid in the autumn ; and during the whole sum- 

 mer the female plant-louse, instead of laying eggs, brings 

 forth her young alive. Nature's object evidently is, to 

 continue the breed through the winter; for if the female 

 plant-louse continued to bring forth living offspring to 

 the last, as soon as the leaves fell these would perish for 

 want of food, and the species would disappear from off 

 the face of the earth. 



S. P. M., N. Y. — The drawing you sent represents the 

 caterpillar popularly known as the "Saddle-back," which 

 feeds on a great variety of plants, but is not generally 

 very destructive. The moth — the Eupretia stimulca of 

 Clemens — has the front wings of a uniform ferruginous- 

 brown color, with two small subapical white spots, and 

 the male has two more near the base of each wing; the 

 hind wings are pale reddish-brown. The spines which 

 cover the horns of the caterpillar, produce a painful sen- 

 sation — not unlike that caused liy nettles — when brought 

 in contact with the back of the hand, or any portion of 

 the body on which the skin is thin. We shall be glad to 

 hear from you whenever you have anything on our sub- 

 ject to communicate. 



James A. Fenwick, N. J. — We shall be happy to receive 

 from you specimens of the insects you speak of as being 

 destructive to your Cr.anberry crop, also any information 

 of their habits that you may possess. 



