54 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



(which are then black) had each dcsceiiiled by its 

 own silken cord, on some books and papers, on the 

 wall, and on the floor, where they immediately com- 

 menced constructing their "habitacula" (orcases)out 

 of the substances upon which they rested. Some 

 were of leather, some of paper, some of scales of 

 lime, (whitewash,) and others of the straw matting 

 with which the floor was covered. On trees I have 

 seen them appropriate the outer bark of the trunks 

 and branches for the same purpose. With me, 

 they hatched out from the egg state, from the 20th 

 to the 28th of May; and their cases then stand up 

 at right angles to the surface upon which they rest, 

 and look like so many cone-shaped warts or spurs. 

 And they carry them thus until they are from ton 

 to fifteen days old, when they begin to suspend 

 themselves from the underside of the leaves and 

 branches. 



Remarks by B. D. W. — The reader will be much oblig- 

 ed to Mr. Rathvon for the above correction. Common as 

 this insect appears to be in Pennsylvania, I am not aware 

 of its having been hitherto found in Illinois; and the 

 assertion I made was based entirely upon statements 

 found in books. Speaking of this same insect, Mr. Glover 

 says : — "The drop- worm, as it is commonly called, is oc- 

 casionally found upon the cotton-leaf, but generally in- 

 fests the arbor-vitse, larch, and hemlock-spruce. It is also 

 found upon almost all of the deciduous trees, such as the 

 linden and maple." (See Monthly Rep. Agr. Dcp. 1866, p. 

 423, where a figure of the worm and of its singular case, 

 constructed from pieces of leaves, will be found.) From 

 the last Report of the Insect Committee of the Cincinnati 

 Horticultural Society, it appears that 15 cases of this insect 

 were recently collected in Ohio on cedar bushes, "a few in 

 a place, or singly, one upon a bush." Hence it docs not 

 Beem to be at all common there at present. 



HABITS 0? THE TREE-CRICKET. 



((Ecanthus niveus.) 



The annexed figures, which are copied from Har- 

 ris, give a very 

 good idea of the 

 common Tree- 

 cricket, the lower 

 figure represent- 

 ing the male and the upper one 

 the female. The general color 

 is a delicate, greenish, semi- 

 transparent white ; but varieties 

 occur in both sexes — and not 

 " exclusively in the female sex, as 

 is erroneously stated by Harris, 

 {TnJ. Ills. p. 154) — with the legs 

 and antennae almost entirely 

 black. 



Miss Marion Hobart, of Port Byron, 111., has as- 

 certained that this insect deposits its eggs in the 

 twigs of Sumac and Hazel, and has kindly furnish- 

 ed me with specimens. The eggs arc yellow, cylin- 

 drical, but rounded a little at each end, about 0.13 

 inch long, and six times as long as wide, and strong- 

 ly resemble those of the Catydid genus Orchelim- 

 um, as already described by myself. (Froc. &c. Ill, 

 p. 2.32.) They are deposited in an irregular series 

 nearly an inch long, lengthways of the twig, each 

 egg sloping obliquely downwards towards the pith, 

 and the series being indicated externally only by a 

 slight brown roughness. A correspondent of Dr. 



Harris found this in.sect to lay eggs in peach twigs, 

 but no details of the operation have been hitherto 

 published. A European species is said "to make 

 perforations in the tender stems of plants, and in 

 each perforation to thrust two eggs quite to the 

 pith." (Harris InJ. Ins., pp. 154 — 5.) 



The same lady, as has been already stated. (Prac- 

 tical E.NTOMOLooiST I, p. 120,) found this same 

 insect to feed upon plant-lice during the summer 

 of 1866. As her observations have been continued 

 since, and as I believe them to be perfectly reliable, 

 I subjoin what she says on the subject : 



I send you the identical insect that I found depositing 

 its egg in the Sumac twig which I left with you. I kept 

 it caged from October l.'ith to November 11th. giving it 

 the best bill of fare that I could. There are two kinds of 

 Aphis, one of which I find on the Pear-tree, [Aphis maii,] 

 and the other on the tame grapo-vi\ie, [Aphis vitis,] that 

 it never refused. I do not find any other kind that is 

 quite to its taste; though, if I remember rightly, I found 

 in the summer that a kind o^ Aphis, which occurs on the 

 Oak, was acceptable to a specimen which I then had in 

 confinement. It will eat apples quite readily, and once 

 when it had had a long fast it nibbled a little dried oak- 

 leaf, which it soon left for the eggs of a moth, ( Orgi/ia leu- 

 costigma.) I have supplied it with a great variety of 

 leaves since, but have never seen it eat any. 



The Tree-cricket, therefore, like the Ground- 

 cricket, appears to be rather a general feeder. But 

 its peculiar taste for plant-lice is very remarkable 

 and important. For the future, when these insects 

 are noticed on trees infested by Plant-lice, instead 

 of wantonly destroying them, we must say : " Well 

 done, thou good and faithful servant. Eat your fill 

 and do not spare the vermin. And even if you 

 should occasionally nibble a piece of apple, we shall 

 not grudge it to you, in consideration of your fiiith- 

 ful services." b. d. w. 



IMPORTING EUROPEAN PARASITES. 



In the Compendium of the U. S. Census for 

 1860, (p. 82,) the New York State Agricultural 

 Society is complimented very highly for its '■phi- 

 lanthropic spirit," in having "introduced into this 

 country from abroad certain parasites, which Pro- 

 vidence hag created to counterwork the destructive 

 powers of depredatory insects." In support of this 

 assertion, a passage, occupying a page and a half of 

 fine type, is quoted from a Report by Dr. Fitch, 

 the Entomologist of that Society ; but this passage 

 says not a single word bearing upon the above sub- 

 ject, except that "we have no parasites in this 

 country that destroy the Wheat Midge." The real 

 truth of the matter is, that the New York State 

 Agricultural Society has done nothing of the kind, 

 which the U. S. Census asserts that it has done; 

 though, like certain other Societies, it has got 

 the credit of actu;illy doing a thing, because it has 

 simply talked about doing it. Unless my memory 

 fails me. Dr. Fitch st;ited in one of his Reports 

 that he had written to that distinguished English 

 Entomologist, Mr. Curtis, to send him living speci- 

 mens of the parasites that infest the Wheat Midge 

 in Europe, but that, as might have been naturally 

 expected, no practical results followed from that ap- 

 plication. How could it be otherwise ? Who, in 

 this dirty, selfish, mean little planet of ours — which, 



