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THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



thousands of them flew across his path-^but he 

 winked hard, and would not or could not see them. 

 Or perhaps, because, when flying, the insect dis- 

 plays a beautiful pair of rose-colored wings, he 

 fancied that it was a Bee or a Butterfly. The 

 following Editorial remarks occur in the Iowa 

 Homestead for April 3, 18G7 : 



If our Western Potato Bug, which so far as we can dis- 

 cover, is wingless, both male and female, can annually 

 make sixty miles Eastward in its course, it is no wonder 

 the Cankerworm should disseminate itself so rapidly. 



Now the truth of the matter is, that the Canker- 

 worm does not^ as a general rule, disseminate itself 

 rapidly. It may exist in one township for years, 

 before a few larvre are accidentally deposited on 

 the garments of some person passing through an 

 infested orchard, and thence carried to an adjoin- 

 ing locality to propagate the breed there. The 

 reason is plain. The female moth of the Canker- 

 worm is wingless. On the contrary, both the male 

 and female beetles that are designated as the 

 *' Colorado Potato Bug," fly with the greatest ease 

 on hot, sunshiny days, though certainly they are 

 not quite as strong on the wing as a Honey-bee or 

 a Dragon-fly. During the summer of 18G6 I do 

 not think that I ever took a walk, without seeing 

 one or two of these insects on the wing, and often 

 I saw them sitting on weeds or fences miles away 

 from any potato patch. Hence their eastward pro- 

 gress is not dependent upon contingencies and un- 

 certainties, as is the case with the progress of the 

 Cankerworm from one place to another. And we 

 may therefore predict, with tolerable certainty, (now 

 that I have clearly shown why they did not sooner 

 emigrate eastward from the E,ocky Mountain 

 region), that their eastward progress after the year 

 18(36 will be about at the same rate as their east- 

 ward progress from 1859 to 186G — namely, about 

 sixty miles a year, or at all events, somewhere in 

 the neighborhood of those figures. B. D. W. 



SO HOGS DESTBOY GBUBS? 



BY JOHN TOWXLEY, CF M.VRQITETTE COUNTY, WIS. 



My observations lead me to conclude that the 

 hog will root up the earth for at least three pur- 

 poses. 1st, If iu fatting he is confined in a pen, 

 the floor of which is boarded, he will root up the 

 ground for the sake of eating the earth itself, es- 

 pecially if not provided with charcoal. Other do- 

 mestic animals will eat earth also ; it would seem to 

 be a sort of brute medicine. 2d, Hogs will root 

 up the ground for the sake of feeding upon roots. 

 This I have watched them do. They are, for in- 

 stance, very fond of the Virginian Spider-wort, 

 which was a common plant here when first this 

 place was settled, and now grows in large quantities 

 along side the fences of many fields, whore hogs do 

 not run ; but one may wander a summer's day over 

 unenclosed land where hogs and cattle roam at 

 will, and yet be scarcely able to find a solitary 

 plant. Other plants, which are still common in 

 enclosed fields, have disappeared from the open 

 woods in like manner. I do not believe that this 

 is entirely the work of hogs; but I am persuaded 



that they alone would have eradicated some species. 

 3d, Hogs will root up the earth in search of grubs. 

 I was first made aware of this fact by noticing, 

 when passing along a road where the soil was light, 

 that the stumps by the road side seemed as if some 

 one had been digging the earth away from them, 

 and had laid bare their roots so as to cut out the 

 grubs. I found afterwards the same labor had 

 been bestowed on some stumps in a lane between 

 my cattle-yard and a pasture; this was the work of 

 hogs. A large white grub does good service by 

 feeding on oak stumps underground, eating away 

 the roots in time, and thus making the stumps easy 

 to pull up. Is this something difi'erent from the 

 two white grubs mentioned in the April number, 

 as one is said to feed exclusively upon the roots of 

 living plants, the other on dung? [Yes, it is pro- 

 bably the larva of the large chestnut colored 

 Beetle, called Horn-bug, (Lucanus.') B. D W.] 



Again, in the summer of 1864, we had the so- 

 called 17 years' locust. These were glorious days 

 for the hogs. Early and late they were at work ; 

 never before had my wood-lot, in which they ran, 

 such a rooting up as then. Indeed, they turned 

 over so much ground that I took advantage of 

 their labors by sowing tame grass seeds. At first 

 the insects kept mostly in the woods, but when 

 something was about to come of their amatory 

 singing, they resorted to the orchard in great num- 

 bers; and not liking the deep incisions made in 

 the branches of my trees by their formidable ovi- 

 positors, I went over my trees night and morning, 

 the insects being then more easily caught than in 

 the middle of the day, and with a table fork, I 

 jerked or picked them off into a pail containing 

 some hot water. [Why the table fork ? Use your 

 fingers. " Locusts" neither bite nor sting. B. D. 

 W.] They were then poured into a swill-pail, 

 some meal added, and the whole mixed up with 

 boiling water, and afterwards fed to the hogs. 

 Any one learned in hog language would have known 

 by the amiable expression of their eyes, as they 

 turned them up now and then, to grunt their 

 thanks, that the locust-soup was exactly suited to 

 their taste. 



On the south slope of a ridge between my place 

 and the Post-oflice, the locusts were very abund- 

 ant ; hazel-bushes grow here and there, scattered 

 by the road side, and if you have ever seen hogs 

 on a nutting excursion, you have a correct idea of 

 the way I have seen them hunt round the bushes 

 for the locusts. 



Three or four years ago, when mowing timothy, 

 we found a patch several yards square, which was 

 brown, as if the grass had been attacked by some 

 mildew or fungus, and so killed. A brief exami- 

 nation sufficed to clear up the mystery. The roots 

 were cut ofl" as effectually as if a knife had been 

 run underneath the sod, and the fat grubs seen in 

 the soil left little room for doubt that this mischief 

 was their work. [No doubt these were the com- 

 mon White Grub, the larva of Lnchnosternn 

 qucrcina. B. D. W.] As soon as the hay was 

 hauled off I turned my hogs into this field. They 



