68 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



mel, seeing that sap can only take up such sub- 

 stances as are soluble in water, and calomel, as 

 every cliild knows, will not dissolve in water. The 

 writer might as well try to make us believe, that 

 sap can ''take up" sand or gravel, as "take up calo- 

 mel." One thing is just as possible as the other. 

 And the same remark applies to the sulphur, which 

 is recommended to be mixed up with the calomel. 

 In the 1st volume of the Prai!TICAL Entomolo- 

 oi.ST, (p. 12.5,) will be found recorded a case, where 

 sulphur had been introduced into several >} inch 

 auger holes, bored in peach-trees, and still remained 

 there two or three years afterwards. Whereas, ac- 

 cording to the New Patent Tree-doctors, it ought 

 to have been long ago absorbed into the circulation 

 of the tree. And on page 9fi of the same volume 

 there is another case recorded, where 27 pounds of 

 sulphur, plugged up in 120 apple-trees, utterly 

 failed in killing the cankerwornis. 



I lately heard of a lady who was cured of a 

 violent headache, by her husband presenting her 

 with a new bonnet. As soon as the bonnet was 

 put on lier head, the head-ache left her, and never 

 returned for three or four years afterwards. This 

 is just as good proof that bonnets cure head-aches, 

 as the above quoted case from New York is that 

 calomel cures sick apple-trees. I strongly suspect 

 that, in both instances, there would be certain un- 

 expected fixcts developed on a rigid cross-examina- 

 tion of the witnesses. B. D. w. 



TH3 GIl.\?E-VIN2 COLASPIS. 

 [ Colaspisfiavida Say.) 



From several answers to correspondents it will 

 have been noticed, that this insect has preyed ex- 

 tensively on the terminal shoots and young leaves 

 of the grape-vine, in Ohio and Illinois, in the sum- 

 mer of 1866. From a letter of Dr. Fitch's pub- 

 lished in the Country Gentleman, of Awj;. 30,186(5, 

 it appears that what from his description must be 

 the same insect has "destroyed grape-vinos by the 

 wholesale" in Massachusetts, and that in New York, 

 in Dr. Fitch's own neighborhood, "it has been the 

 worst enemy that has attacked the vine, riddling 

 the leaves with small round holes, interspersed with 

 larger irregular ones." Dr. Fitch has also heard 

 of It in several other parts of the country; and 

 what is probably the same species is mentioned by 

 Mr. Glover, as having been near Washington in 

 1866 ''very injurious to the foliage of the grape- 

 vine, in which the perfect insects eat innumerable 

 small holes." (_A;/ric. Report 1865, p. 01.) The 

 annexed figure will give a good idea of this little 

 pest, the hair-line showing its natural length 



Instead of referring this insect to 

 the flauida of Say, Dr. Fitch has 

 cho.sen to name it as the Colaspis 

 irHnji^a of Fabricius. Fabricius's de- 

 scriptions are generally so very short, 

 that it is often impossible to be cer- 

 tain, from the descriptions alone, what 

 particular species he refers to, when 

 several distinct species coexist in the 

 same country which resemble one 

 another very closely. This is the case in the pre- 



Colors, cream- 

 color and 

 black. 



sent instance. There is another beetle of precisely 

 the same size and shape, which is equally abundant 

 with Siiy's Jfaviila and occurs in the same localities, 

 and to which Fabricius's description will apply 

 nearly as well as to Say's species. This second 

 beetle, however, is a very distinct species, and is 

 the Oolaspis coxtipennis of Dejcan's Catalogue, aa 

 I have been informed by IjC Conte. It differs from 

 Jlaviilfj, in the thorax and head being of a dark 

 metallic greenish color, (not yellow tinged with 

 rufous,) and in the wing-cases being pale brown, 

 each with four smooth slightly elevated pale yellow 

 longitudinal lines, the two outside ones and the two 

 middle ones respectively uniting behind in an acute 

 angle. In Jhicida, on the contrary, there are on 

 each wing-case, eight (not four) such pale yellow 

 lines. It differs also from Jlaviila in the last ?> or 

 4 joints of the antenna;, being uninterruptedly 

 brown-black; whereas in flnvida the last joint or 

 two and the tip of the last joint but four, are brown- 

 black, leaving the intervening two or three joints 

 always pale yellow or cream-color. This very re- 

 markable colorational peculiarity occurs also in 

 Uohispis prxtexta Say, but it does not appear to 

 have been hitherto noticed by authors, either in 

 prxtexia or in Jiavula, and Dr. Fitch does not notice 

 it in the description of his Cohisjjis referred to 

 above. 



As a general rule, where an old author, like Fa- 

 bricius, has described an insect so loosely and briefly, 

 that it is impossible to identify it with any certain- 

 ty, and a modern author, like S;.y, has published a 

 good and full description of it, it is better to use 

 the modern name. For the law of priority, according 

 to which the name given by the first describer 

 takes precedence of all succeeding ones, only ap- 

 plies when the description is such that the species 

 may be identified with comparative certainty. There 

 is no greater nuisance in science, than authors who 

 are perpetually exhuming old dead and buried and 

 forgotten names, based upon descriptions which are 

 good for nothing, and foisting them into the places 

 of names which are in universal acceptation in the 

 scientific world. Science should deal as much as 

 possible in things and as little as possible in word3. 



It may seem strange to novices, that a particular 

 insect, which had never been noticed before as in- 

 jurious, should swarm in this manner all over the 

 United States in a particular year, on the particular 

 plant which it infests. But in this case the insect 

 is what would be popularly called a small one, and 

 it is only of late years, that people have begun to 

 awake to the practical importance of attending to 

 such matters. Besides, it is only of late years, that 

 the grape-vine has been extensively cultivated in 

 the United States. There can be no doubt what- 

 ever, that the insect has always existed in this 

 country, in the woods, preying upon the different 

 species of wild-grape. I have never failed myself 

 for the last eight years, to capture numerous speci- 

 mens of it in the woods in Illinois, every year. 

 Instead of wondering why particular insects should 

 swarm in particular years, far beyond their usual 

 numbers, the wonder with me has always been — 



