108 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Balis" and "Fungus" arc used as English .words, they 

 ought to have an English, and not a Latin plural. And 

 apon the same principle, if custom did not forbid, I would 

 prefer to write "genuses," rather than "genera," as the 

 plural of "genus." You yovirsolf would surely not 

 say that "Washington and Franklin were great genii" 

 instead of "geniuses?" But our language is such a mass 

 of contradictions and anomalies, that neitlier here nor 

 elsewhere can we lay down any infallible and incontro- 

 vertible rule. Other matters elsewhere. 



W. V. Andrews, N. Y. — When I said, that with the Bees 

 and Wasps it was only the females that had stings, I in- 

 cluded the Workers or so-called "Neuters" of the Social 

 species in the term "females." They are in reality a "di- 

 niorjjhous" form of the female sex — the two forms not 

 running into one anotiier by intermediate grades, and yet 

 in the case o-f the Honey-bee the very same egg being ca- 

 pable of producing, eithera Queen or a Worker, according 

 to the mode in which the larva is fed and lodged. Worker 

 honey-bees do even occasionally lay eggs, without inter- 

 course with the drones or males, and these eggs develop 

 into drones. In the case of the Social Wasps, as stated in 

 the Answer to Miss Hobart, (Practical En'to-mologist II, 

 p. 33.) the Workers are even cajiable of generating other 

 Workers, also without any intercourse with the male or 

 drone Wasps. The Queen of the Honey-bee has a sting, 

 just as well as the Worker Honey-bee; and the same is 

 true of the large Females, or Females par excellence, of all 

 the Social sjiecies of Bees and Wasps found in the United 

 States. There are indeed certain genera of Social Bees 

 {Melipona, &c.,) where neither the Females nor the Work- 

 ers have stings ; but these are chiefly natives of South 

 America and .Australia, though a few species occur in 

 Mexico and Cuba. In the case of all the Bees and Wasps 

 that are not Social, there is only one kind of female, or, 

 in popular langu.age, there are no "workers" as distinct 

 from the ordinary females, and the females perform all 

 the labor of constructing nests for their larvs, the males 

 being idle gentlemen, solely occupied in sipping honey 

 and gallanting the ladies, as is also the case with the 

 males of the Social Bees and of the Social Wasps. 



Volney Abbey, K.msas. — The cutworms reached me, 

 alive and in iirst-rate order, in the tight little tin box in 

 which you had enclosed tliem along with some moist 

 earth. They are, as you riglxtly suppose, true cutworms, 

 and will, in the course of tlie summer, produce moths or 

 so-called "millers." I cannot identify either species of 

 the two which you send, with any that has been hitherto 

 described. Likely enough, in Kansas you have distinct 

 species of this genus of moths {A</rotis), as you have of 

 many other genera of insects. 



I can recommend no plan to destroy the foe that is now 

 actually attacking you, but the old-fashioned one of dig- 

 ging them out with your fingers, wherever you find your 

 vegetables "cut" by them. This seems at first sight "slow 

 business," but it is not in reality so slow, as any one 

 would suppose who has not tried it. Killing the motr^is 

 when they appear in the course of the summer, will di- 

 minish the crop of cutworms for next year, but will not 

 help you in any way this year. And after all, unless a 

 whole neighborhood were to unite in this plan, it would 

 be comparatively ineffectual, as the moths fly to great 

 distances in the night to deposit their eggs. 1 have al- 

 ready recommended tlie use of poison to destroy these 

 moths, and incline to believe that this method would be 

 far more deadly to them than lighting fires at night as 

 you suggest. But, like all other modes of fighting noxious 

 insects, it requires to be practically tested, before it can 

 be recommended as a sure remedy. You will find full di- 

 rections for poisoning these moths in the Practical En- 

 tomologist vol. II, pp. 52 — 3. 



Wm. Smith, Iowa. — "The brown bug, looking like the 

 sow-bug that is often found on small fruit," which you 

 have noticed to prey on the larva of the Colorado Potato 

 Bug, is probably a species of the Srutcllcra family in the 

 Order of the True Bugs (Ileteroptera). These insects have 

 all of them the peculiar smell of the Bed Bug, wliiidi they 

 often impart to Blackberries and Raspberries that they 

 have been walking over, and have been heretofore no- 

 ticed to plunge their long beaks into the Potato Bug lar- 

 VfB, and suck them dry in the manner th.it you describe. 

 What are properly called "Sow-bugs" are the gray, 11- 

 legged creatures found under boards in cellars, ic, and 

 are not Insects at all, but belong to the same Class (Crus- 



tacea) as the Crabs, Lobsters and fresh-water Craw-Gsh. 

 As to the Catydid attacking these Potato Bug larvse, it is 

 entirely a new fact, and I should be glad of a specimen 

 taken in the act, so as to determine the species. I have 

 myself observed Catydids to prey upon flies, so that your 

 statement is by no means improbable. Specimens of 

 grapes, supposed to be punctured by some insect, will be 

 very acceptable. 



J. R. Tewksbury, HI.— The black bug about i inch long, 

 which you fi>und on the root of a peach-tree, is the pupa 

 o{ Ptra'tex piciper: — an insect belonging to the Bcduvius ta- 

 mily, (all of which are cannibals,) in the Order Heterop- 

 tera (True Bugs.) The perfect insect scarcely difl'ers from 

 the pupa, except in having complete wings reaching to 

 the tip of^its abdomen. I always find it underground, and 

 it no doubt preys there upon some of the subterraneous 

 larvse, that do so much mischief, and are so difficult for 

 us two-legged bugs to get at. The wasp-like moth, about 

 3 inch long, belongs to the same genus — ^geria — as the 

 common Peach Bnrer (.f-JTr/e^'ia g.ri^'osa), though it evident- 

 ly differs from that species. What particular species it 

 really belongs to, cannot be told, as the specimen was 

 rubbed almost completely bare, probably in catching it, 

 and broke up into about fifty pieces, by shaking about 

 loose on the road in the tin bo.x in which yon enclosed it. 

 But all the known species oi JEgcria are borers in the lar- 

 va state, and should, therefore, have no mercy shown 

 them. Of course, though they some of them look like 

 wasps, they have no stings. 



A. D. Strong^. Ohio. — The shining black beetle, about an 

 inch long, with two irregular orange-colored bands across 

 its wing-cases, is the I^ceropkorus ?«ary/nahfs of Fabricius, 

 and belongs to the Silpha family. There arc several 

 other species belonging to this genus found in the United 

 States, one of which — the americanus oi OWy'wr — is nearly 

 twice as large as your species, and is one of the hand- 

 somest insects that we have. All of them have the same 

 remarkable habit of burying small pieces of carrion — 

 such as a dead rat or a dead bird — and laying their eggs 

 therein, the larvse proceeding from which are thus en- 

 abled to monopolize the savory food for themselves. You 

 can easily obtain specimens of our four commonest spe- 

 cies, by depositing small pieces of carrion on soft earth 

 anywhere, and visiting them from lime to time, having 

 previously marked the exact spot. Po not be surprised, 

 if you find the bird or the rat appai-ently abstracted 12 

 hours after you placed it there; but dig down in the ex- 

 act spot where you had left it, and you will find it, and 

 the insect sexton or sextons most probably still working 

 away to undermine and bury it deeper yet. Hence, in 

 English this group is termed the " Burying-beetles," or 

 sometimes the ".Se.xton-beetles." In common with many 

 dung-beetles ( Geotrupes, Ulster , &c.), the Burying-beetles, 

 as you remark, are often infested by numerous lice, which 

 are not, however, true si.x-legged lice, such as infest the 

 human species, but eight-legged Mites, belonging to the 

 same Class as the eight-legged Spiders; whereas the true 

 Lice belong to the Class of insects, all of which in the per- 

 fect state have six legs, neither more nor less. Perhaps, 

 however, the most available criterion to distinguish a 

 Mite from a Louse is the circumstance of its having no 

 head distinct from its thorax. For very many of the 

 Mites use their front legs as antennfe, so that to the inex- 

 perienced eye they seem to have only six legs; and some 

 few genera have really only six legs. 



M. S. Hill, Ohio. — Your insects are named as follows: 

 — 1. Desmocerus palliafus Forst. 2. Gnorimiis maculuttts 

 Knoch. 3. Tetraopcs tornntor F;ibr. 4. Dicheloiiycha sub- 

 vittafa Lee. 5. Chri/somela simills Rogers. 6. Cltr. cyaiiea 

 Melsh. 7. Telcphorus Carolina Iiinn. 8. Tel. bilincattis 

 Say. 9. (The true bug) Pcntatoma carntfct Fabr. They 

 are all pretty common, except Nos. 2 and 6, of which I 

 should be glad to receive a few additional specimens, if 

 you have them to spare. Your observation that the lar- 

 va; of No. 6 feeds on rhubarb and dock leaves is, I believe, 

 new to science. 



E. Daggy, 111. — The very minute and almost microsco- 

 pic colorless insects, which you "discovered in immense 

 numbers — millions upon millions of them — in your hot- 

 beds, clustering upon the ground, but so far as you can 

 discover, feeding upon nothing so as to injure it," must be 

 the very young larv.T of a species of Ground Flea belong- 

 ing to the genus Uminthurus, and are probably the (iarden 

 FloaofFiteh {Sniinthurus hortensis), which you will find 



