82 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



with the borer, the cracks at the mouth of its burrow may 

 always be found liiu'd with those minute eggs. 



IIemarks by B. D. W. — lucredible as it may 

 seem, Mr. lliley'.s criticism on tlie American Jour- 

 nal of Horticulture is based upon actual facts. The 

 ■writer in that Periodical absolutely does not know 

 the difference between a Bark-louse (^Coccus fami- 

 ly) and a Plant-louse (Aphis family), and mixes up 

 the names and the habits of the two in a most 

 amusing, though certainly not a very instructive 

 gallimaufry. The best idea that the reader can 

 obtain of this astounding article, is by supposing 

 some Agricultural Journal, recently started in Bo.s- 

 ton, and claiming " to supply a demand that has 

 been long felt," to discourse as follows about 

 Sheep : — 



The Sheep {Sus scrofa) is the most useful animal that 

 has been domesticated by man, inasmuch as it supplies 

 him not only with Bacon, Tallow, Pickled Pork, Mutton 

 and Lard, bvit furnishes all the wool that is worked up 

 into clothing by the Manufacturers of New England. 

 Though its (lesh is so palatable, yet the sheep is a very 

 foul-Xeeding animal, greedily devouring any kind of pu- 

 trid carrion, and readily eating almost anytliing that any 

 other creature will eat, except hay, straw and white beans. 

 It has a remarkable propensity for wallowing in the foul- 

 est mud-holes, so' as to daub itself all over with mud, 

 which, after it has become thoroughly worked into tlie 

 fleece, the sheep men call by the technical name of "oil" 

 or "yolk." Taking advantage of this nasty habit of the 

 Sheep, the sheep men supply their flocks with abundance 

 of wallowing holes; for this "oil," as they call it, is al- 

 ways sold along with the fleece at the same price jier 

 pound, although it must all be washed out before the wool 

 can be spun and wove into cloth, and thus becomes a 

 dead loss to the unfortunate Yankee manufacturer. Fre- 

 quently the fleece of an improved Chester White Buck, 

 worth $3,000 after he has taken the First Prize at some 

 Agrioultur.xl Fair, weighs when marketed 25 pounds, on- 

 ly 3 or 4 pounds of which is clean wool, the rest being no- 

 thing but mud, or the so-called "oil," which the poor 

 wool-buyer is compelled to pay for at the same rate as the 

 wool. Formerly the Berkshire sheep were the most high- 

 ly esteemed ; but they are objected to now on account of 

 the generally dark color of their fleeces ; and the Chester 

 "Whites, lufantados, Suffolks, Vermont Merinos and Irish 

 Graziers, are at present the most popular breeds. 



The author of the above Entomological Article 

 in the American Journal of Horticulture, figures 

 twice over in the list of its regular Contributors, 

 once in the department of "Vegetables and Cere- 

 als" and once in that of "Pomology." The Jour- 

 nal advertises two regular Entomological contribu- 

 tors — Mr. Scuddcr and Mr. Sanborn — either one 

 of whom would have been utterly incapable of such 

 ridiculous blunders as the above. Why not employ 

 one of these gentlemen to write about Plant-lice, 

 and confine Mr. Ales. Hyde to his Plums and Po- 

 tatoes ? What is the use of a "Journal of high 

 tone and liberal ideas employing the best talent in 

 America," if it sets Fruit-men to write about Bugs 

 and Bug-men to write ,ibout Fruit? If this is the 

 best the Journal can do, it will be some time before 

 it attains that circulation of 40,000, which it so 

 confidently anticipates in its advertisements. Hor- 

 ticulturists want a Magazine from which they can 

 learn something, and not a farrago of articles writ- 

 ten by men, who know nothing at all of the sub- 

 jects which they discuss, and who thus pile error 

 upon error and blunder upon blunder, till confusion 

 becomes worse confounded, and the primeval chaos 

 returns again, and all the fruits of Adam's labors. 



in naming and distinguishing the difi'erent species 

 of animals created by the Almighty, are lost, and, 

 for the time beiiig, annihilated. 



In the Introduction to the first number of the 

 Journal, the Editor promises that " Entomology, as 

 connected with horticulture, shall be treated by 

 competent writers." (p. 3.) It appears then, that, 

 in the judgment of the Editor, a man is a compe- 

 tent entomologist who does not know the diflerence 

 between a Plant-louse and a Bark-louse!! lam 

 confident that not one of the excellent, long-estab- 

 lished Horticultural periodicals, which are sneered 

 at in the same page of the Introduction, as "having 

 an interest in some horticultural establishment/' 

 would ever make such a laughable mistake. 



CONFESSING THE COEN. 



In the l.ast number of the Practical Entomo- 

 logist, (p. 58), I taxed the Prairie Farmer with 

 two mistakes, 1st, attributing an Article to Mr. 

 Glover, which on the face of it was written by 

 another man, and 2d, accusing the author of the 

 Article of calling the Striped Borer of the apple- 

 tree a butterfly, instead of a beetle. The Prairie 

 Farmer, as it appears, had already pleaded guilty 

 to the first charge, before my paragraph was pub- 

 lished ; and I now beg leave to " confess the corn" 

 as to the second charge. The author of the Article 

 in question does actually call the Striped Borer a 

 " butterfly," having only 16 lines before called it a 

 " beetle.-" The word " butterfly" does not, how- 

 ever, occur on the eighteenth line of p. 205, as the 

 Prairie Farmer of March 16, 1867, erroneously 

 asserts; but part of it on the nineteenth line, and 

 part of it on the twentieth line. We shall all of us 

 get right at last on these important matters. 



B. D. W. 



THE PKOPELLEE FLY. 



The following description of a new species of 

 Fly, is from the pen of Captain Kingsbury, of the 

 14th Illinois Infantry. Probably it comes as near 

 the truth as the descriptions of some of our modern 

 "species-grinders." In other words, there is a 

 very large superstructure of fancy, built upon a 

 very slender foundation of facts. The insect is 

 said to have occurred near Corinth, Mississippi; 

 but it would puzzle Loew to decide to what family 

 of Diptera it properly belongs. 



AVithin the last week I have discovered a new kind of 

 insect — I call it the Propeller Fly. It is not as large as 

 one of our Yankee musquitoes, but you ought to see and 

 feel them bite. They light on you, raise their hind end — 

 standing on their fore legs — and commence turning 

 around. Their bill is like a corkscrew, and when they 

 get it in the right place they start the machinery by ad- 

 vancing the right fore leg. They then work a propeller 

 wheel, which is, of course, at the stern, and around they 

 go like lightning, and in goes the corkscrew, and you 

 cannot pull them olf without unscrewing them. They 

 are a " bad egg." 



ji^rtv- We want .^000 more subscribers to the Practical 

 Entomologist. Will not each present subscriber try to 

 send us another? 



