THj; PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



19 



I found last summer a whitish larva with a faint 

 yellowish tinge in great abundaQce ; the pupa is 

 brown, with an oblique fluttish point at one euJ." 

 From this I bred a small gray silver-colored fly, 

 kindly determined by Baron Osten Sacken to be- 

 long to the genus Lcucopts. This is a valuable 

 enemy, and would prove very efficient were it not 

 for a minute species of chalcis fly, that preys upon 

 it while it is eating the eggs of the coccus ; thus 

 doubly verifying the law of "eat and be eaten." 

 Last year I bred twenty of them to one fly; this 

 summer the larva of the flv is not so abundant. I 

 also saw a deep yellow, orange-colored larva, from 

 which I bred quite a different and unknown insect. 

 It is comparatively rare here. 



A very minute almost microscopic black ichneu- 

 mon feeds upon the coccus. Rare ; I have only 

 one specimen. 



A small heteropterous insect, probably undescri- 

 bed, also preys upon the coccus, and is moderately 

 abundant.^ I have seen its small light purple larva 

 in the gall, both last summer and this, as well as 

 on the outside of the leaf, sometimes in colonies. 

 One of them I bred to the perfect state by feeding 

 it one month with the coccus. 



By far the most important enemy is a very small 

 species of the Coci-infUidx or lady-birds. They 

 are very plenty in both larval and perfect state. I 

 have frequently found the larva in the galls, as 

 well as crawling about over the leaf, visiting the 

 different coccus families, as its necessities demand- 

 ed. -Its abundance and comparative freedom from 

 parasites make it the most important of all the 

 enemies that I have found among the coccus. The 

 bodies of the larva are covered with a cottony se- 

 cretion looking like white fuzzy bands encircling 

 each segment. They evidently belong to the ge- 

 nus Scymnus and correspond with Scymnus termi- 

 natus (Say), an insect described as inhabiting Lou- 

 isiana. 



The larvae of "the golden-eyed lace-winged fly" 

 ( Chrysopa) can usually be found feeding upon them, 

 from which I have bred C plorahunda Fitch, 

 and an undescribed species remarkable for the 

 great length of its antenna and general paleness. 

 These Chrysopa generally are doing a good work, 

 but are considerably restrained by an ichneumon 

 parasite. 



Notes by Besj. D. Walsh. 



1. Dr. Shimer estimates that he found "over 5000 egge 

 and young ones just hatched, in a single gall with but 

 one parent insect." Either his galls are larger than mine, 

 or his eggs are smaller than mine, or, which I rather in- 

 fer, there is some error in his calculation. On carefully 

 measuring the eggs and the largest galls I have been 

 able to find, I calculate that it is impossible to pack more 

 than 700 eggs in any gall, besides the mother-louse. 

 Moreover, I have almost always found more than one 

 mother-louse in the large-sized galls. Probably 200 eggs 

 on an average to every female louse would be not far from 

 the mark. 



2. I have observed tendril-galls on the Clinton grape- 

 vine, that I believe to be produced by the same insect as 

 the leal-galls. The tendril-galls, which I spoke of in the 

 passage referred to by Dr. Shimer, were said by my cor- 

 respondent to occur on a foreign grape-vine which bore 

 no Icof-gaUs at all. Whether these are produced by a di.^- 

 tinct species of Coccua is another and a very diflon nt 

 question. I think it not improbable, however, from the 



very great similarity of these tendril-galls to those on the 

 Clinton grape-vine, that they are not. 



3. On October ist, I found as many as five of these 

 leaf-galls to contain a mother-louse along with eggs and 

 young larvEe ; but this was exclusively on the small ter- 

 minal leaves. As the larvse hatch out through the sum- 

 mer, they keep perpetually passing on to younger and 

 younger leaves to establish new galls, so that the old 

 leaves, by the end of the summer, become entirely free 

 from bark-lice, and the old galls gape widely open and 

 partially dry up. 



4. The pupa of Leucopis, according to European au- 

 thors and my own observation, has two oblique processes, 

 (not one, as stated by Dr. Shimer,) growing from its tail, 

 as in many Syrpbidous pupae. Dr. Shimer says that "I 

 gave no account of this fly, except its size." I distinctly 

 stated that it was a two-winged fly belonging to the great 

 Musca family. (Practical Entomologist I, p. 112.) See 

 further on this subject in the Answer to E. Daggy,in the 

 Practical Entomologist II, p. 8, and to W. H. S. on page 

 9 of the same volume. 



5. The "small heteropterous insect," spoken of as prey- 

 ing upon the Coccus, is probably a Thrips which genus 

 has never been referred by any author to Heteroptera, 

 though Latreille places it among the Homoptera. By 

 Westwood and others the Thrips family are considerad 

 as forming by themselves a separate Order. I have no- 

 ticed many of them in and about these galls both in the 

 larva and in the perfect state, and I am now fully satis- 

 fied, from repeated observations in regard to a great va- 

 riety of galls, that Thrips is a cannibal insect, and not a 

 vegetable-feeder as all authors had previously supposed. 

 (See Proceedings, Ac. Ill, pp. 611—2.) There is no "small 

 heteropterous insect" known to me that is a cannibal, all 

 those belonging to this Order that are really cannibals 

 being of some considerable size. 



Since ihe above paper of Dr. Shimer's was forwarded 

 to the Practical Entoiiologist, that gentleman has pub- 

 lished in the Prairie Farmer (Nov. 3, 1S6IJ) an account of 

 the winged male obtained from these vitifolice galls. I 

 have been refused permission to inspect one of his speci- 

 mens, but from the paper itself and from an examination 

 of a specimen made at ray request by Mr. Cresson it re- 

 sults that this insect must fopm a new and somewhat 

 anomalous genus belonging to the Coccus family. The 

 tarsus is one-jointed, but it is stated that there are two 

 distinct tarsal claws; and there are four wings, the hind 

 pair much the smallest and devoid of veins, the front 

 pair with a "costal" or rib-vein only, which Dr. Shimer 

 erroneouslv calls the "discoidal nerve," and which emits, 

 according to that gentleman, "a long longitudinal branch" 

 very obscurelv developed. Misled by the unusually full 

 development of the hind wings, and by the presence of 

 two tarsal claws— though by the way, I can myself dis- 

 cover but a single tarsal claw in the wingless female, un- 

 der an excellent Coddington lens— Dr. Shimer proposes 

 to establish a new Family, intermediate between the 

 Coccus and Aphis families, to contain his new genus, to 

 which, however, he has as yet assigned no name. But in 

 all known males belonging to the Coccus family, the hind 

 wings, as in Diptera, are represented by balancers (halt- 

 eres), and the more complete development of these bal- 

 ancers into a small pair of hind wings is not sufficient 

 ground for the establishment of a new Family. We might 

 as well, because in the generally four-winged Ephemera 

 family, some Cloe and all Cccnis have not even the 

 slightest vestiges of any hind wings, make on that ac- 

 count a new Family out of them. Again, the presence of 

 two tarsal claws, instead of a single tarsal claw, is not 

 sufficient ground for the establishment of a new Family. 

 For in many Families of insects, which no one ever 

 yet dreamed of cutting up on that account into two fami- 

 lies, for example, in the Pselajyhus family among the Bee- 

 tles, some genera have two equal tarsal claws and some 

 but a single tarsal claw. On the other hand the one-joint- 

 ed tarsus is a character of much higher value, and cou- 

 pled with the neuration of the front wing, which, so far 

 as can be ascertained from a very loose and indefinite 

 and inaccurate description, unaccompanied by any fi- 

 gures, is nearly identical with that of Coccus, forms good 

 and sufficient grounds for referring this insect to the 

 Coccus, and not to the Aphis family. 



In his paper in the Prairie Farmer, Dr. Shimer errone- 



