THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



117 



although the e(jgs of the Apple-tree Plant-lice had 

 stood without any damage a temperature of 

 some 15 or 20 degrees below zero, on several occa- 

 sions during the winter of 1866-7, yet the young 

 larvse, freshly hatched out, and as tender and deli- 

 cate as so many babies, could not stand a tempera- 

 ture of some 25 or 30 degrees above zero, in May, 

 and perished wholesale, and as if they had been 

 swept away by the besom of destruction On in- 

 specting my apple-trees, where three weeks ago 

 every bud was alive with Plant-lice, I cannot now 

 (May 25) find a single living individual. It might 

 be thought at first sight that, as often happens in 

 the summer, the whole generation of them had 

 been destroyed suddenly by their numerous Insect 

 Foes. But the weather has continued so unusually 

 cold, that these foes of theirs have none of them 

 yet stirred out of their winter quarters. Conse- 

 quently the poor unfortunate little lice must all 

 have been frozen to death — brought to an untimely 

 end — and descended to the grave of the bad bugs, 

 " Unwept, unhonored and unsung." 

 After all, perhaps, I ought not to repine at this 

 melancholy catastrophe. For though I may lose 

 in reputation as an infallible prophet, yet I shall 

 probably make it up to myself by a more abundant 

 crop of apples. B. D. w. 



THE TENT-CATERPILLAR OF THE APPLE-TREE. 



( Ciisiocampa aviericana.) 



This insect was unusually abundant in 1866 all 

 over the country, and this year is unusually scarce, 

 at least in my own neighborhood. The above is, 

 no doubt, attributable to its eggs having been 

 largely depredated upon last season by a minute 

 species of Egg-parasite, belonging to the Pteroma- 

 lus group of the great Chatcis family. I bred 

 great numbers of them last summer, and from the 

 eggs ascertained that they were apparently the 

 same insect which Dr. Packard bred in 1863, in 

 the same month (August) from the same eggs, 

 and which he erroneously, as it seems, referred to 

 the genus Plat ijg aster, in the Proctotrupes family. 

 See his article on the subject in the first volume of 

 the Practical Entomologist, pp. 14 — -15. 



B. D. w. 



A NEW FOE OF THE CORN. 



Mr. J. J. Thomas, of New York, has received a suout- 

 teetle from a correspondent in Onondaga County, N. Y., 

 ■who states that "it is making sad havoc with corn-fields, 

 destroying whole fields in some instances." This beetle, 

 of which Mr. Thomas has sent me specimens, is a species 

 of Splienophorvs — a genus closely allied to Sitophilus, 

 which includes the true Grain Weevil and the Eice Wee- 

 vil — but neither Dr. LeConte nor myself have been able 

 to identify it with any described species. What is very 

 remarkable and illustrative of the well-known fact, that 

 in particular seasons certain insects will swarm, and then 

 not be heard of again in any considerable numbers for 

 many years; I lately received the same insect from Mr. 

 Paschall Morris, the Publisher of the Practical Farmer , 

 with a similar account of its operations in Pennsylvania. 

 He states as follows; "A farmer at Concord, Delaware 

 County, Pa., found numbers of this insect destroying the 

 young shoots of corn which they puncture with their 

 proboscis. They are found near the top of the ground. 

 Most generally the corn dies ; but if it survives, as the 

 leaves unfold they show the punctures, which look like 



shot-holes. He found four of these insects to one 'heart- 

 worm,' as the Pennsylvania farmers call it. [Probably 

 the insect called 'spindle- worm' in New England, which 

 burrows in the heart of the young growing corn and pro- 

 duces a moth — the Gortyna zc<z of Harris. The same 

 worm appears to be called the 'bud-worm' in North Caro- 

 lina. — B. D. w.] This insect never appeared in Delaware Co. 

 before this season, and it is doing great damage to the 

 corn." So far as I am aware, the above facts are quite 

 new in Economic Entomology. 



Like several other species of Sphcnophorus, this beetle 

 appears to feed in the larva state on moist wood, situated 

 in places where it is continually washed by water. Near 

 Rock Island, 111., I have often met with it, and with se- 

 veral other species of the same genus, in decayed loga 

 floating in our sloughs ; and once I found it absolutely 

 swarming, in company With five or six other species of 

 the same genus, on the lake beach at Chicago, close to the 

 wood piers at the mouth of the harbor. No doubt, in the 

 larva state, it had lived upon the decaying and moist 

 wood of these large piers. Its feeding on living vegeta- 

 ble substances when in the perfect beetle state, and on 

 decaying and dead vegetable substances when in the lar- 

 va state, is analogous with many facts well known to en- 

 tomologists. For example, the Spotted Pelidnota, {Pelid- 

 nota punctata, ^gurei in Harris, p. 25, and in Fitch's JV. 

 Y. Reports, Plate 2, fig. 6,) devours the leaves of the grape- 

 vine'in the perfect beetle state, and in the larva state 

 lives on rotten wood. Judging from the habits of the lar- 

 va, I am persuaded that this snout- beetle can only annoy 

 the farmer in situations where there is a large accumula- 

 tion of decaying drift wood, Ac, in wet places, or at all 

 events, a few miles from such situations. We may ob* 

 serve that Onondaga County, N. Y., encloses at one end 

 Lake Skeneateles, which is 15 miles long, and at the 

 other end borders upon Lake Oneida, which is 21 miles 

 long; and that Delaware County, Pa., abuts on the Dela- 

 ware River below Philadelphia. Hence, having bred in 

 the moist drift-wood, <tc., generally to be met with in 

 such large bodies of water, and being possessed of a good 

 pair of wings, this beetle is enabled, whenever it chooseS) 

 to fly off to the neighboring cornfields. In seasons when 

 it has bred in moderate numbers, it is probably never 

 noticed on the corn; but when in certain seasons it 

 swarms — as often happens with a great variety of other 

 insects — then its ravages become at once apparent to the 

 eye and immediately attract attention. 



It only remains to give a brief description of this insect, 

 so that it may be recognized hereafter, whenever detect- 

 ed in the same operations. 



Sphenophorus zeae, new species ? (The Corn Sphcnopho- 

 rus). Color black, often obscured by yellowish matter 

 adhering to the hollow places, which, however, can be 

 partially washed otf. Head finely punctured towards the 

 base, with a large dilated puncture between the eyes 

 above. Snout one-third as long as the body, of uniform 

 diameter, as fine as a stout horse-hair, and curved down- 

 wards. Before the middle of the thorax a polished dia- 

 mond-shaped space, prolonged in a short line in front and 

 in a long line behind ; and on each side of this an irregu- 

 larly detined polished space, somewhat in the form of anin- 

 yerted Y; the rest of the thorax occupied by very large ' 

 punctures, which fade into finer and sparser ones on the 

 polished spaces. Wing-cases with rows of still larger 

 punctures, placed very wide apart in the usual grooves 

 or strise ; the sutural interstice, that between the 2nd and 

 3rd striffl, and that between the 4th and 6th strire wider 

 than the rest, elevated, and occupied by very fine punc- 

 tures ; a small elongate-oval polished spot on the shoulder 

 and another near the tip of the wing-case. Beneath, po- 

 lished, and with punctures as large as those of tlie thorax. 

 — Length about three-tenths of an inch, exclusive of the 

 snout. Comes very near Sphenophoriis truncatus Say, but 

 the snout is not "attenuated at tip" and has no "elonga- 

 ted groove at base above;" and moreover, nothing is said 

 in the description of that species of the very large and 

 conspicuous jjunctures, found in the elytral striae of our 

 species. 



Since the above was written, specimens of the same in- 

 sect have been received from Robert Hervell, of Tioga 

 County, N. Y., who gives the same account of their depre- 

 dations on young corn, and says, that the sap flowing 

 from the wounds made by them attracts myriads of ants. 

 whence some of his neighbors have erroneously supposed 

 that it was the ants that Were the authors of the mischief. 



