198 LETTERS TO DR. FLETCHER [CHAP. xix. 



should not leave their cast clothing behind them ! I wonder 

 what you will think of my idea of ring vegetable disease ? 

 Dr. Lindeman writes me that he means to examine for 

 Anguillulida (eel- worms) . 



I am particularly interested in your notes of C. Icgumini- 

 cola [American clover-seed midge], for I have long 

 suspected we had the larvae here, and to-day I succeeded 

 in rearing my first imago, and have sent it off to Mr. Meade 

 with Dr. Lintner and Professor Saunders's description and 

 figures to see if he will agree with me. Will you kindly 

 thank Professor Saunders from me for having the new 

 edition of his excellent book on fruit pests sent to me. It 

 is a pleasure to see it in this less expensive form, so many 

 more people will buy it. 



September 2, 1889. 



You must indeed have had pleasure in your visit to 

 Washington, but what a spectacle your study table must be 

 on your return ! Does not the collection, all calling 

 " answer me first," quite make your heart sink ? I cannot 

 face it it is such a terrible strain, so I stop nearly entirely 

 at home like a limpet on a rock, and keep my work as well 

 as I can in hand. 



November n, 1889. 



Did I tell you that the Xyleborus dispar, Fab. (Shot- 

 borer), has made what I hope may be only one of its 

 strange intermittent appearances, in plum stems at the 

 great Toddington fruit ground near Cheltenham ? What a 

 strangely destructive attack it is ! I could not completely 

 understand how it killed the young trees so wonderfully 

 quickly until I dissected some stems, and found that, like 

 your X. pyri, Peck, the creatures partly ringed the stem to 

 begin with. And what a quantity in one stem ! We need 

 a descriptive English name, so I propose to call it the 

 " Crowder," from the manner in which all the galleries are 

 so crowded with the beetles, that there seems hardly room 

 for another specimen. 



December 6, 1889. 



How very very curious is what you say about Professor 

 Riley's now thinking . kuhniella (Mill moth, fig. 41) may be 

 a South Carolina insect. I shall await the letter you promise 

 me with great interest. I suppose some records have been 

 searched out, for in the spring he wrote me that he thought 

 he could safely say that this species did not occur in the 

 United States. Dr. Lintner also held the same view, and 

 he is care itself. I am so glad you told me, for I had 



