74 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



go on to tho peach, crowding on the fruit as thick as pos- 

 sible, even wiien the size of a hulled walnut: and next 

 thov go on to the apples. They have destroyed the fruit 

 nearly all of it off 5U of my apple-trees, when it was as 

 large as a small egg-" 



Eiward E. Sheldon, Mich, — The larva, which hatches 

 out from eg^s laid on the Wheat-plant in the fall by the 

 Hessian Fly, lives through the winter and comes out 

 next spring in the form of the perfect Hessian Fly. You 

 will find the history of this insect in the Pkactic.il 

 E.VTOMiiLOuisT, Volume I, pages lUS — 9. 



J. M. Cole, Missouri, per E Ir. RnnAL WonLD. — What 

 you take for "small white worms," about 4 inch long, 

 lying in the pith of a very small twig of the Delaware 

 Grape-vine, "with small holes, looking as if they were 

 partly grown over on the outside, by which they entered 

 tho cane," are not worms (or larvte) but eggs. If you re- 

 collect, these supposed "worms" were not divided into 

 many distinct joints or rings by transverse creases, but 

 were smooth from one end t'lanother like a sausage. By 

 this character you m ly always distinguish the egc/s of in- 

 eects, (many other kinds of which are fully as elongate 

 as those you send.) froni the larvte of insects. The eggs 

 in question were deposited in the twig for safe-keeping 

 last fall by the borer or ovipositor oi the common Tree- 

 cricket {(Ecanihus niveun.) of which insect you will find a 

 figure in the last number of t<ie PaAOTiCAL Entomologist, 

 (p, 51,) and also a noticeof its habits; and if you had not 

 meddled with them, they would have hatched out ne.xt 

 spring into minute larva, only dltfering from the perfect 

 ins'-ct in size and in having no wings. 



This answers your first question, what these supposed 

 "worms' really are. As to the second question, how are 

 you to keep them off your vines, my advice is not to make 

 any such attempt, but to allow the insect to breed and 

 multiply as fast as he pleases. He is your prif.sd axd 

 NOT Youa ENEMV; for, as you will see from the Article 

 already referred to, he feeds upon plant-lice; and I know 

 from many Missouri correspondents, and Mr. Geo. Hus- 

 man says the same thing, that plant-lice are rather more 

 abundant than is agreeable on the grape-vines of your 

 State. 



J. H. Hunt, Ohio.— The little cases, containing minute 

 16-footed worms, which you found upon your bee-hives, 

 are those of the larva of some small moth belonging to 

 the Tinm family. From very similar, but rather larger 

 cases, J bred long ago a small moth, which was described 

 by the late Dr. Clemens, from specimens sent to him by 

 m;, as Sjleiiobia Wahhdla. The moths that destroy our 

 woollen clothes and our furs live in somewhat similar 

 eases, while in the larva and pupa states. It was merely 

 in search of a suitable place to pass the winter in that 

 these worms of yours crawled apon your bee-hives. They 

 can do no harm to the bees, as they feed upon some kind 

 or other of vegetable matter. There is no coleopterous 

 larva that lives in suah cases as these; and besides, all 

 coleopterous larva are either 6-legged, sometimes with a 

 leg-like process at the tail, or else they have no legs at 

 all. The specimens arrived in first-rate order. 



!SS- Answers to John Murphy, Edward Orton, F. T. 

 Pe'miier, Isaac Hicks, E. E. Sheldon and Dr. Benj. Norris, 

 will be given in the next number. 



New England on the PnACTicAL Entoiiologist. — During 

 their recent session the Massachusetts State Board of Ag- 

 riculture passed the following resolutions : — 



Resolved, That in the opinion of the Massachusetts 

 State Board of Agriculture, the Entomological Society of 

 Philadelphia, [now American Entomological Society,] by 

 its researches and its publications, has exhibited a com- 

 mendable desire to increase the amount of human know- 

 ledge. 



Resoloed, That we regard with great favor the endeav- 

 ors of this society to disseminate in an available forma 

 knowledge of tb'is important branch of Natural History 

 among Farmers and Pomologists, and we specially re- 

 commend their publications and their gratuitous labors 

 to the favorable notice of the community. 



EESATA INND.17. 



Page 50, column 1, lines IJ and 14 from bottom, for 

 "flea-beetle, (Haltica)" read " snout-bcetle, (Apion.)" 



Page 56, column 2, line 35—6, for "I, p. 10," read "II, 

 p. 10." 



NOTICE. 



The Southern CuHivalor, now in the twenty-fifth year 

 of its existence, is publislied monthly in large octavo form 

 at Athens, Georgia; terms two dollars & year, payable in 

 advance. Each number contains about 32 pages of read- 

 ing matter and nearly the same amount of advertise- 

 ments, whence we infer that its circulation is pretty ex- 

 tensive^ In the number before us we notice many excel- 

 lent articles on the cultivation of Rice, Sugar, Tobacco 

 and Cotton, and the editors are live men, and thoroughly 

 posted in their business. Success to the Cultivator, and 

 may all its subscribers follow the advice which it gives 

 them, namely, to send us specimens of the bugs _that 

 trouble them, snugly packed in a little tin box, with a 

 supply of their natural food, and accompanied by as full 

 an account as possible of the manner in which the animal 

 operates. Southern bugdom, in many departments, is 

 as yet a new and untrodden field: and it is only by the 

 practical man cooperating with the scientific man, that 

 noxious insects can be cfiectually counterworked. 



JTIMPIN3 T3 CONCLUSIONS. 



The Editor of the Wisconsin Fanner, (March 2, 

 18G7,) has an article upon "the Pottito Bug," in 

 which, from his evident ignorance of the f:ict that 

 there are no less than five different kinds of Potato 

 Bugs, he arrives at some most astounding lesults. 

 Because, as he shows, potatoes were infested by 

 bugs at Zanesville, Ohio, in 18'i8, and at the St. 

 Croix Palls, Wisconsin, iu 1857, he jumps to the 

 conclusion that these bugs must necessarily have 

 been the true Colorado Potato Bug, {Bori/pJiora 

 10-linrala.) If he will only refer to the Practi- 

 cal Entomologist, (II, pp. 25 — -27,) he will find 

 four difierent kinds of Potato Bugs figured and 

 named, which have infested various districts east 

 of the Mississippi river for time immemorial; and 

 he addStcs not one particle of proof, that the Ohio 

 bugs of 1858 and the Wisconsin bugs ofl857, were 

 not some one of these four kinds. I say " not one 

 particle of proof," because I do not call such rea- 

 soning as the following, in any correct sense of the 

 term, " proof." " It would seem from their rapid 

 increase, their destructiveness to the potato, and 

 their indifference to caustic applications, that they 

 must have been the genuine JDoryphora \ii-lineata 

 of Colorado."* 



When WILL Agricultural Editors quit talking 

 about "THE Potato Bug," "the Borer," "the 

 Grtib," "the JIaggot," &c., &c? One might as 

 well assume that there is only one kind of Bird in 

 the whole United States, and that because a roasted 

 Turkey makes very good meat, therefore a stewed 

 Turkey Buzzard would be etpally palatable, and 

 equally wholesome diet. 



But the cream of the jest is, that the Wisconsin 

 Farmer publishes a letter from Jlr. Byers, the 

 Editor of the Denver A^cws (Colorado.) in which 

 the aforesaid Editor suggests, that I may have mis- 

 taken the Colorado Potato Bug for the Colorado 

 Grasshopper!! What would Sir. Byers say if 1 

 were to insinuate, that he might possibly net know 

 the difference between a "quod" and a " compo- 

 sinKStick?" B. D. W. 



» Since the above was in type, I have heard from the 

 Editor of the Ohio JVirnier, that the common Polato-bug 

 in Ohio is the Striped Blister-beetle, {Lt/tla vittala, figur- 

 ed in the Practical Entomologist II, p. 26.) "This in- 

 sect," as he correctly remarks, "is much narrower and 

 th inner than your Ten-lined Beetle, (Do )yp/ioralO-/i>ico/a,) 

 a sample of which I received from Iowa two years ago." 



