THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



113 



Eround at the root of a peach tree m South Illinois. 

 Hence we may learn that, like the new Potat^o-bug, it goes 

 undergroimd to pass into the pupa state. As it be onga 

 to the some Chrysomda family as that insect, the larva 

 no doubt, as well as the perfect insect, feeds on the leaves 

 of the gra pe vine. It will be a soft six-legged grub, prob- 

 ably of some pale color, with a horny head and an apolo- 

 EV for a leg at the tip of its tail. Pelidnota punctata, on 

 the other hand, belongs to an entirely different I amily 

 of Beetles, the Lamellicorns or Platehorns, and its larva, 

 instead of eating green leaves, lives in very rotten wood. 

 I have bred one mvself from the stump of a Pignut Hic- 

 kory, which was decayed enough to cut like cheese. 

 Hence this last insect is only injurious m the perfect 

 state, while the other is injurious throughout its entire 

 existence. 



Jos S Lewis, N. Y.— The larva of Corydalis cornuius, (a 

 huge four-winged fly nearly as big as a man;s finger,) 

 lives in the water and preys upon various aquatic insects. 

 It always crawls out of the water to pass into the pupa 

 state, for which purpose it conceals itself under some log, 

 plank or flat stone not far from the river it had previous- 

 ly inhabited. In these situations it is much sought after 

 by fishermen, who call it a "crawler" and find it excel- 

 lent fish-bait. In about three weeks' time it comes out in 

 the perfect winged form, and it is the males only that 

 have those extraordinarily longsickle-shaped jaws which 

 are often mistaken for horns. Both sexes fly exclusively 

 by night or twilight, and the females lay their eggs on 

 something overhanging the water, so that the young lar- 

 vte as they hatch out may drop readily into their natural 

 element. They are in no respect injurious to vegetation, 

 and no doubt help to maintain the due equilibrium of In- 

 sect Life, bv checking the too great multiplication of the 

 various May-flies, Caddis-flies, Shad-flies, &e. that inha- 

 bit the water. 



F. W. Noble, Missouri.— The pupa of the Tobacco Moth 

 (Sphinx Carolina of Linnoius) arrived in first-rate order. 

 The ju^-haudle like appendage under its head does real- 

 ly cont'ain the long tongue of the future moth, which 

 tongue as you may have noticed, is, when uncoiled, near- 

 ly twice as long as the body of the Moth itself. The pupa 

 lies underground, without eating anything, all through 

 the winter and until the beginning of the following sum- 

 mer. Then the enclosed moth bursts the shell of the pu- 

 pa and works its way out to the light of day, its wings 

 beino- at first quite short and flabby, but gradually length- 

 ening and stillening in the course of an hour or so. The 

 se-xes then couple and the female lays her eggs on tobac- 

 co-plants, whence there soon hatch out the notorious to- 

 bacco-worms which are such a pest to tobacco-growers. 

 Ocoasioually the potato-worm— which produces a very 

 closely allied Moth (Sphinx 5-maculata of Stephens)— is 



found"upon tobacco; but far more usually it feeds on to 

 mato and sometimes on potato vines. Almost all these 

 Sphinx moths fly round flowers in the dusk of the evening, 

 sucking the honey from them with their long tongues, 

 and manv of Tliem making a loud humming noise as they 

 fly, whence they are frequently mistaken by the inexpe- 

 rienced for humming-birds. 



Wm. H. Perry, Mass.— The black beetles about i inch 

 long found in your wood-pile, and I expect under the 

 bark, are the Xylopirms anthracinus of Knoch, a harmless 

 insect feeding on various kinds of decaying wood, but not 

 a borer. The three with black backs and chestnut-brown 

 bellies are the common meal-worm in its winged state, 

 very destructive to flour, meal, bran, Ac. The large 

 beetle with yellow spots is the Clytus nohilis of Harris, a 

 true borer. The "gray -back" is also a borer, Arhopalus 

 julminans. The bright green beetle, running and flying 

 with great agility in roads leading through timber land, 

 is Cicindela ti-guttata, a very ferocious Cannibal. And 

 "the small black bug common in fields and gardens" is 

 nothing but your old friend the meal-worm again in its 

 perfect or winged state. We have no chestnut here, and 

 therefore I do not recognize from your description the 

 rolls made out of chestnut leaves; they may perhaps be 

 the nests of some leaf-cutting bee, (Merjachile), but I can- 

 not say for certain without seeing specimens. 



Miss Isaure A. f lucke, N. Y.— The larvas that " have 

 destroyed your potato-vines for two years back and threat- 

 en to do the same this year " are those of the very same 

 Three-lined Leaf-beetle (Lema trilineaia), which, as you 

 will see from the "Answers" to other correspondents, 



have recently reached me from all quarters in the East- 

 ern States. Larvee travel best enclosed in a small tight 

 tin box, along with some of their natural food-plant by 

 way of provision on the journey. Otherwise they usual- 

 ly die on the road and shrivel up badly ; whereas scarcely 

 any insects in the perfect state shrivel up when dead. 



Saml. S. Laoy, Michigan.— The black caterpillars about 

 an inch long, with long white hairs on their bodies, and 

 found on the Black Walnut and Hickory, are the Datana 

 ministra of Drury. A similar insect occurs on the Apple- 

 tree, and on Oak, Thorn and a variety of forest-trees, but 

 it then always difl'ers from specimens found on Walnut 

 and Hickory, by having a number of whitish and yellow- 

 ish lines placed lengthways on its body, and generally by 

 having also a large yellow patch placed immediately be- 

 hind its head, whence it was called in English by Dr. 

 Fitch "the yellow-necked worm." As I Tiave experi- 

 mentally proved, the yellow-necked variety of the larva 

 found on the Oak produces exactly the same Moth as the 

 black larva found on the Hickory. Yet they must be 

 distinct species, because the black caterpillars found on 

 the Walnut, cannot, as I have just ascertained, be com- 

 pelled to feed either on Oak leaves oron Apple-tree leaves. 

 These caterpillars usually create considerable alarm, when 

 found on Apple-trees, because they gather in crowds up- 

 on a single limb, till they have entirely stripped it of its 

 leaves. But this very habit of theirs makes it much easier 

 to destroy them, than if they scattered themselves one 

 by one over the whole tree. They are a very common in- 

 sect throughout the Northern States. The eggs sent are, 

 I think, those from which your caterpillars hatched out; 

 but the eggs of moths are many of them so nearly alike 

 that I cannot say so with certainty. The larvae go un- 

 derground to change into the pupa state, and the perfect 

 moth does not come out till the following summer, when 

 she lays her eggs on the leaves of the infested trees. You 

 will find a good colored figure of the Moth in Harris's Jjy. 

 Inx. plate VI. fig. 6. 



F. K. Phoenix, 111.— The beetle that, as you say, "de- 

 stroys grape-vines by feeding on the ends of the shoots " 

 is the Colaspis flavida of Say. See the Answer to Wm. J. 

 Lawrence in this No. of the Practical Entomologist. 

 The small bluish-green jumping Beetle scarcely J inch 

 long is the Haltica exapta of Say. It comes very near the 

 Haltica chalybea that is such a pest to the vine-growers, 

 but is smaller, slenderer and not of a pure blue color, and 

 its sculpture also differs. The genus contains an immense 

 number of species, many of them very closely allied, and 

 your florist may possibly be mistaken in thinking, that 

 he saw the same insect five years ago in New York. Fa- 

 miliar as I am myself with in;ects, I never dare name a 

 Haltica without comparing it closely with the named spe- 

 cimens in my cabinet. The little flea-beetles that destroy 

 seedling cabbages and radishes and also young egg- 

 plants, belong to this same genus. To protect my own 

 egg-plants when young, I always cover them over with a 

 bottomless box roofed with musketo-bar, such as I use to 

 keep the Cucumber-beetle from my vines. Your species, 

 you say, is -'very destructive on your Fnschias." It must 

 feed on other plants as well ; for I find it here away from 

 any gardens, though by no means abundantly. 



Joel Barber, Wise.- The black blister-beetle about J 

 inch long with a narrow gray edging to its wing-cases is 

 Lytta marginata (Olivier). It usually feeds on different 

 species of Clematis (virgin's bower) and Kanunculus (but- 

 tercups), but last year I found a large colony of them 

 feeding on Silphium perfoliatum. It has not hitherto 

 been observed to attack the potato, as you say it has done 

 with you, though there are three other species of the ge- 

 nus that do so — vittaia, cinerea and atraia. It is not likely 

 that for the future you will find more than a few stray 

 specimens on your potato-vines. The remarkable spider 

 you send has long been well known to me. It was de- 

 scribed and named five or six years ago in the Pratrie 

 :^armtr by Cyrus Thomas; but I forget the name he gave 



A. Burlingame, Ohio.— The eggs found on the leaf of a 

 cherry tree are those of some moth, but from their shri- 

 velled state and their having been taken off the leaf, I 

 cannot say for certain what species they belong to. They 

 would have produced some kind of caterpillar, not im- 

 probably that of the Ked Humped Prominent (Notodonta. 

 concinna). 



