10 



infested room at night, a wash-bowl filled with water, and in the middle 

 of it a lighted candle. Like many other insects, the fleas are attracted 

 to the light, and leaping toward it, are caught in the water and drowned. 

 Persons who had experimented with the above trap, reported it as most 

 effectual, and as giving promise of a speedy release from the affliction. 

 In some instances the water of the bowl was stated to have been " black 

 with fleas " caught during the night. 



A NEW CORN DEPREDATOR Euryomia Inda (Linn.). 



From various sections f the State of New York and of New England, 

 complaints have been made of an insect which was proving very injurir 

 ous to standing corn, by burrowing beneath the husks and feeding upon 

 the kernels. All the accounts stated that it had never before been 

 known to prey upon corn. The following notice of it is extracted from 

 a New Haven, Conn., paper of September 7th, 1878 : 



The Corn-Bug. The corn-fields of the interior of the State are suffer- 

 ing from a brown-colored, six-legged bu^, having a broad body and a 

 small head, which starts at the tips of the ears and works through to the 

 butt, devouring the kernels. Meriden and Burlington report the rav- 

 ages of the pest. A correspondent from the latter place says : ' Fields 

 of corn are ruined almost in a single day.' A gentleman, of Wood- 

 bridge, picked twenty of the bugs off two ears of corn, August 30th. The 

 general impression among farmers is, that this pest will prove more dis- 

 astrous than even the potato bug." 



From examples received, it proved to be no new insect, but one that 

 had long been known to science, and familiar to all entomologists as 

 Cetonia Inda. The Cetoniaris are preeminently flower-beetles, their 

 mouth organs being provided with a brush of hairs with which to col- 

 lect the pollen of the flowers which they frequent, as those of the golden- 

 rod, et cet. They are diurnal in their habits, flying actively about, with 

 a loud, humming noise like that of bees, in the warm and bright sun- 

 shine. There are eighteen species of the Cetonidae known to North 

 America, of which the C. Inda, or as it has been designated since the 

 subdivision of the old genus of Cetonia the Euryomia Inda, is our most 

 common species. It is a thick-bodied beetle, measuring about six-tenths 

 of an inch in length. Harris describes it as having a broad body, very 

 obtuse behind, with a triangular thorax, and a little wedge-shaped piece 

 on each side between, the hinder angles of the thorax and shoulders of 

 the wing-covers ; the latter, taken together, form an oblong square, but 

 are somewhat notched or widely scalloped on the middle of the outer 

 edges. The head and thorax are dark copper-brown or almost black, and 

 thickly covered with short greenish-yellow hairs ; the wing-cases are 

 light yellowish-brown, but changeable with pearly and metallic tints, 

 and spattered with numerous, irregular, black spots ; the underside of 

 the body, which is very hairy, is of a black color, with the edges of the 

 rings and the legs dull red. 



That one of the flower-beetles should present itself to our notice as a 

 corn pest, has excited no little surprise even among entomologists. Its 

 habit of frequenting sap trees in the spring to partake of the sap, has 

 long been known, and it has also been chargeable with burrowing into 

 ripe peaches to feast upon the sweet and luscious pulp. An entomologi- 

 cal correspondent of the New Haven paper from which we have quoted 

 above, Mr. H. F. Bassett, questions the statements made that this insect 

 is the author of the injuries credited to it, and says : " It would be just 



