THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



119 



B. W. McLain, Indiana. — The depressed, oval, white, 

 cottony masses, over i inch long, and with a brown scale 

 on one end of them, found on the leaves of the common 

 Maple, are evidently the egg-masses of an undescribcd 

 species of Bark-louse, (Coccus family. Order Homoptera). 

 The brown scale is the body of the female, as in other 

 Bark-lice. Although the English name of this family is 

 "Bark-lice," and although most of them do really inha- 

 bit the bark of various trees, yet many species — for ex- 

 ample, one found on the Oleander — inhabit the leaves, 

 as your insect seems to do. Since the above was in type, 

 I have hatched out swarms of young Bark-lice from the 

 specimens sent. 



A. Gilbert, Iowa. — The minute oblong-oval white 

 specks, so thickly salted over the bark of your apple-tree, 

 are the larvce of the Native Bark-louse {Aspidiotus Hnr- 

 risii). You will find thinly scattered among them a few 

 of the old last year's scales from which they hatched out, 

 and also a few of the Imported Bark-louse (Asp. conchi- 

 formis.) I had prepared materials for an Article on the 

 subject of these Bark-lice and the methods of killing 

 them, but, like many other such Articles, it will now be 

 crowded out of the Practical Entosiologist. 



M. M. S., Penna. — 1st. When an insect, which lives 

 aboveground in the larva state, passes the pupa state un- 

 derground, it is always the larva that enters the earth 

 and not the pupa. Occasionally such insects transform in- 

 to the pupa state aboveground among dead leaves, Ac, but 

 in that event the pupa never burrows underground. 2nd. 

 Most pupse that pass that state underground have a pecu- 

 liar apparatus for forcing their way to the surface, when 

 the pupa-shell splits open in front and the winged insect 

 emerges. Son^etimes with this object in view the pupa 

 is furnished with sharp thorns on its front part, some- 

 times the rings of the abdomen are provided with trans- 

 verse rows of little thorns directed backwards, and very 

 generally the tail is provided with from one to si.^ stout 

 thorns, by which the pupa gradually pushes itself for- 

 ward to the light of day. By these means, even when 

 the surface of the earth is baked hard, many pupse work 

 through it, but under such circumstances many more are 

 retained underground and perish miserably. For these 

 reasons, prudent breeders of insects always take care to 

 keep the earth in their breeding-cages moderatel}^ moist. 



P. B. Sibley, Mo. — No. 1, from potato vines, is the old- 

 fashioned ash-gray Blister beetle {Lytta cinere^), which 

 has infested the potato for time immemorial. (See Pr.vc- 

 TicAL E.\T0>fOLOc.iST II, p. 36.) No. 2, also from j^otato- 

 vines, is the larva of the terrible New or Colorado Pota- 

 to-bug {Doryphora W-lineata), of the perfect beetle form 

 of which, you say that you have found as yet only 5 or 6 

 specimens. Two years from now you will probably find 

 bushels of them, and see to your cost how destructive they 

 are. No. 3 is the immaculate variety of the Six-dotted 

 ligeT-heetle {Cicindela 6-guttata.) It occurs exclusively 

 in the woodlands, and its larva, as I believe, lives in rot- 

 ten logs, preying on the larvae that bore therein. 



E. T. Snelling, N. Y. — The little jumping beetles, infest- 

 ing a new variety of radish recently imported from Eng- 

 land, are nothing but the common Wavy-striped T]ea,- 

 beeile (Hattica striolata), which you will find figured on 

 page 129 of Harris's Injurious Insects. This is one of seve- 

 ral species of Flea-beetles, that commonly in this country 

 infest young cabbages, radishes, egg-plants, &c., eating 

 little holes in their tender leaves and often the entire 

 leaf. I thought at first you might have ynported among 

 us the European Turnip-beetle {Haltica ncmoruin), which 

 very closely resembles your species, and which is such a 

 terrible pest in England to the turnip crop. But on re- 

 ferring to colored figures and descriptions, I find that in 

 that species, the yellow stripe on each wing-case is quite 

 differently shaped, although in other respects the two in- 

 sects resemble one another almost exactly. 



John Edgerton, Iowa. — The olive-green worm, or rather 

 caterpillar, about \\ inch long, which you found on the 

 roots of Blue-grass, changes to some kind of "Miller" or 

 moth of the group of Owlet-moths (Noctua family). I can- 

 not say to what particular species it would change. In- 

 deed but very little is known of the preparatory states of 

 most of our moths. You might have noticed on the right 

 side of the specimen nine little oval yellowish eggs, like 

 so many flyblows, firmly glued to the skin. These are the 

 eggs of a Tachina fly — a group of two-winged flies, many 

 of which resemble Bluebottle flies. House-flies, <tc. After 



a short time they would have hatched out into whitish 

 maggots, penetrated the vitals of the worm and finally 

 destroyed him, feeding themselves fat upon his substance. 

 They would then have emerged to the light of day in the 

 form of the parent fly that laid the eggs, ready to repeat 

 the same operation upon other larv£e. From Army-worms 

 infested in this manner I have myself bred a Tachina 

 fly, and ascertained that, though several eggs are glued 

 to each Army-worm, but a single one lives to be a fly, 

 the others being probably either preyed on or starved 

 out by theiT overgrown cannibal brother. 



Wm. Prichard, Tennessee. — The egg-rings found on 

 your Sugar-maples are ap)>arently those of the common 

 Caterpillar (CWsiOcam/pa amertcana), which infests many 

 other forest-trees. What proportion of the eggs will 

 hatch out next spring, depends upon how many egg-pa- 

 rasites have preyed on them. ^ 



J. H.Foster, Jr., N. J.— Of the two Click-beetles (Elater 

 family), which you found eating the fruit of your Phila- 

 delphia Raspberries, the large brown one is Melanotus 

 communis, a very common species, the larva of which I 

 believe to breed in decaying wood ; the small red one 

 with black markings is Monocrepidius vcspertinus, a rather 

 rare species with me, and of the history of which I know 

 nothing. 1 formerly doubted Dr. Houghton's assertion 

 that his pears were gnawed into by true Click-beetles; 

 but it seems now that he was in all probability right on 

 this point. Certainly there can be no mistake as to Click- 

 beetles eating raspberries; for you say that you saw five 

 specimens of the smaller Click-beetles on one raspberry, 

 into which they had eaten their way for nearly half the 

 length of their bodies. 



J. J. Kelly, Missouri. — The boring-beetle, which you 

 found imbedded in the solid wood in the but of a Pear- 

 tree, is the common Bxiprcstis borer ( Chrysoboihris fetno- 

 rata), of which I gave a figure and an account in the 1st 

 Volume of the Practical Entomologist, (pp. 26 — 27). As 

 you will find it stated there, this insect is a very general 

 feeder, infesting not only the Apple-tree, but the Oak, the 

 Maple, and a variety of other Forest trees. It has not, how- 

 ever, been as yet recorded as infesting the Pear-tree. The 

 specimen reached me alive and in excellent order. It 

 was not at all necessary to give him any ventilation. He 

 would have lived for a week or more, corked up tightly 

 in a small vial. 



V. T. Chambers, Ky. — I must refer you on the subject 

 of the three Hickory galls, made by a genus of Plant-lice 

 that has been currently called Phylloxera, to a Paper of 

 mine which has just been published in the Proceedings, 

 (Vol. VI, pp. 275—6 and p. 282, note). I have long been 

 acquainted with the winged insects of all these three galls. 

 The subject is too dry for a popular Journal. 



Wm. Kite, Penna. — The gall on the flower-catkin of the 

 Chestnut is exceedingly interesting and hitherto new to 

 science. It is produced by a minute Plant-louse, which, 

 so far as can be discovered from the pressed and distorted 

 specimens enclosed in your letter, belongs to a genus which 

 has been called Phylloxera. You would have conferred 

 an additional favor if you had thought to enclose the spe- 

 cimen, with the accompanying flies, in some small paste- 

 board box. Instead of any of the flies reaching me alive, 

 as you hoped, they were all dead and squashed — alas ! — 

 as flat as a board. 



B. F. Lazear, Missouri. — The large clay-yellow beetle 

 with six black spots on his wing-cases, is Pelidnota punc- 

 tata — a species which has long been known to feed in the 

 perfect state on the foliage of grape-vines. The larva 

 breeds iu very rotten wood. The small shining black 

 Bugs, about tiie size and shape of a radish seed, are the 

 Corimelcena puHcaria of Germar, and belong to the Scuiel- 

 /era family in the Order of True Bugs (Heteroptera). I 

 have often noticed them swarming on flowers, Ac, and I 

 believe that they subsist on the juices of the plants that 

 they inhabit. Almost all the True Bugs, except certain 

 exclusively cannibal genera, emit when disturbed the 

 nauseous odor of the Bed-bug, from two large openings 

 on the lower side of their bodies. This is a defensive 

 weapon with which Nature has provided them ; and we 

 see, or rather smell, the same thing in the common Skunk. 

 The fact of their swarming iu such numbers on your 

 raspberries, as to render the whole crop offensive both to 

 the smell and the taste and absolutely worthless, is new 

 and very remarkable. 



