1876.] 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



131 



Five different kinds of the ej;gs, and of dill'er- 

 ent sizes, are deposited by tlie fiinales, and if 

 the depositor is so small as to elnde hnnian ob- 

 servation, cxeept by artificial means, the dilli- 

 cuUies of reeoj^nizins the dijxisit, is a matter 

 that is not very suriuisinj; under the circmn- 

 stances. 



These insects deposit their eggs on tlie 

 under or downy sides of the leaves — occasion- 

 ally a few of them are deixisited on the npjier 

 sides — under the loose bark of the trunk or 

 branches, |at the tiase of the vines, or in 

 crevices in the earth in proximity to them; 

 and when the younf,' are halehecl they lind 

 their way to the roots and feed on the sap 

 either of the roots or tlu^ leaves, as the case 

 may he. ]5oth wiuf^ed and unwinged males 

 and females occiu', all having a somewhat 

 dilferent history and haliit. The eugs of the 

 leaf form of the insect are dcjiosited in May 

 and June, antl both kinds continue to deposit 

 eggs as late as tlu', end of October, and under 

 one peculiar phase of their development some 

 of the females lay a single egg, nearly as large 

 as the parent, and which afterwartls increases 

 in size. In view of this system of oviposilion 

 on the canes of the grape, it is ree<immended to 

 Strip off the bark and burn it, and to apply 

 coal oil, dilute earbolii; acid, or other similar 

 substance to the canes. Althimgh there seems 

 to be some conlliet of opinion among those 

 who have been giving their attention to the 

 investigation of the history and habits of this 

 insect, it is now chiinied that the snl)ject is 

 nearing its completion, if that end has not al- 

 ready been attiAned. 



But satisfactory as the case may be to those 

 who have time, patience, ability and ojipor- 

 tunity to demonstrate to the few who may have 

 the penetration to comprehend the process and 

 results of their labors, there is still need of a 

 plain historical detail of the insect and its va- 

 rious transnuitations, embracing the leading 

 facts of what is actually known, with all the 

 repetitions, complications and doubtful points 

 eliminated; so as to make the subject practi- 

 cally useful to that portion of the conununity 

 ■who are engaged in viticulture, whether they 

 are amateurs or professionals. Even then, it 

 will require closer habits of observation than 

 many people may have time or inclination to 

 bestow upon such a subject, in order to make 

 an application of the remedies that exiierience 

 may prescribe, however effectual they may be. 

 Under any circumstances, there are many who 

 Would rather discontinue the growing of grapes 

 altogether, and devote their time and means 

 to a less precarious crop, than to subject them- 

 selves to slow, troublesome, and expensive 

 remedies or i)reventions. We hope, however, 

 it may be a long day before our county or our 

 country is visited by such an inlliction as has 

 visited France. Missouri and t.'aliforuia ought, 

 however, to admonish us that we cannot de- 

 pend on entire exemption. R. 



ELM-TREE LEAF-BEETLE. 

 Gtttmira xanthtimtUi'na, 



On the 5th of August, lS7(i, our attention 

 was called to a multitude of " singular worms" 

 on the pavement under an English Elm-tree, 

 near the southwest corner of N<uth Duke and 

 East Orange streets, and subsequently to the 

 large elm in front of St. James' Episcopal 

 Church, a,s well as to a row of elms in front of 

 the residence of Mr. F. Shroderin East Orange 

 street; and a few days afterwards Mr. Jno. 

 Ilager sent us about a gill of the same \i:iirins, 

 from his residence in the westeiu suburbs of 

 Lancaster city. On e.xanuuation these worms 

 proved to be the larra: of the coleopterous in- 

 sect above named. When we visited these 

 places we found these larvie crawling down the 

 trunks of the trees in great nund)ers, and col- 

 lecting in masses arouiul their bases, as near 

 as they could get to the moist earth, and many 

 of them had already changed to the pupa state. 

 A large number of them, however, <rei)t into 

 the crevices, and under the loose bark, and 

 pupated there, whilst others crept close lotla^ 

 bases of the buildings and pujjated there; and 

 possibly, if they could have done .so, they might 

 have crawled a little distance into the earth. 



We could have swept together at either of the 

 places above named, enough to liU a pint meas- 

 ure, and still they were coming in nuiltitudes. 



The foliage of the trees above was perfectly 

 riddled in millions of small holes, or entirely 

 skeletonized, iireseuting a crisp and blighted 

 apjiearauce. In a preliminary article, pub- 

 lislied in the Daihj Kjpiuss, we slated that 

 these insects weri^ a foreign importation and 

 that they lirst made their atipearanc(^ on the 

 elm trees in the vicinity of Haltimore, as now 

 appears mon^ than tlurty years ago, and wen- 

 very destructiv<'. This is their Ihsl appear- 

 ance in Lancaster county "in force." .Mrs. 

 1'. M (iibbons found several specimens on an 

 elm, near her resilience, aliont two years ago, 

 and Mr. Auxer informs us that he foiuid sev- 

 ei'al, last year, in I'equea valley. From this 

 it will be manifest that the insect is increasing 

 in our county. Within one week after they 

 had pupated, the mature beetles Ijegan to ap- 

 pear, and continued to do so from the above 

 date to the end of the month. These insects 

 belong to a large family of hibernating species, 

 and tliereforc' if they weie not generally 

 destroyed when they came down from the 

 In'es— as we reconuneuded — we may have them 

 in increased munbers next season. Both the 

 ^U/'iTt and the inxiijn of many of the (ialeru- 

 cans feed on the foliage of trees, and when 

 they are numerous they possess great defoli- 

 ating powers. 



The IIkmkuy. — When these insects occur 

 on the foliage of a tree that it is desired to save, 

 a liipiid iioison (I'aris green, hellebore, to- 

 bacco, carbolic acid or whale oil soap) should 

 be thrown on it from the nozzle of a garden 

 engine; but when the tree is large this would 

 be almost impracticable. The larv;e, when 

 mature, descend from the tree and no doubt 

 undergo their transformation either in the 

 ground, or among rubbish or grass at the foot 

 of the tree; and from our experience the pres- 

 ent season, this occursduriug nearly the whole 

 month of August. The fact that they assem- 

 bled in the places they did in this city, may 

 have been owing to the circum.stauce of their 

 being unable to jienetrate tlieground — the trees 

 being paved all arouu<l with brick — and some 

 of them we found amassed in corners and 

 crevices around a marble door step, and along 

 the base of a wall, ten feel from the trees. 

 Under such circumstances the larva? and the 

 pupa may be easily gathered u]) and scalded or 

 l)urued. The mature insects no doubt ascend 

 the trees again and feed on the leaves until 

 their fall late in the season. We have found 

 an allied species (Diahrotica viltald) feeding on 

 wild plants in the woods, on warm days in 

 November, and these might exhibit similar 

 characteristics; and this character (lervades 

 nearly the whole great family to which they 

 belong (CllUVSOMELlD.-E. ) 



Dkscuii'tiox. — These larviu are •; of an 

 inch in length ; the head and feet black ; color 

 glo.ssy yellow, two swarthy lateral stripes, and 

 a dorsal yellow stripe; the segments are di- 

 vided transversely aViove by a distinct suture, 

 exhibiting twice as many segmental divisions 

 above as t litre are below ; each segment, al.)ove 

 and within the yellow stripe, h;is four dark 

 tubercular dots, surmounted at the apex with 

 a few short diverging hairs; on the lateral 

 dark stripes are three similar dots, triangidar- 

 ly arranged, on each segment; indeed, the 

 lateral strii)es are formed liy the color of the 

 tuliercles extending down a little l)eyond their 

 bases, leaving narrow yellowish interstices 

 between ; on the abdominal segments are 

 marginal rows of yellowish tuliercles armed 

 with hairs, similar "to the others, on a minute, 

 dark, apical tip ; on the under side — which is 

 yellowish — there are four dark dots on each ab- 

 dominal segment, and a dark central dash, 

 latitudinally arrang('d. 



The pup* are three-sixteenths of an inch in 

 length, (when stretched out straight :[ inch,) 

 lemon yellow in color, and the antenna', feet 

 and wing covers folded over Ihe sternum, as is 

 usual in coleopterous impa'; along each side of 

 the abdomen a sort of frill, more or less, pro- 

 jects outward in secliou.s, thoseof the greatest 

 depth about the centre. These pupa' are en- 



tirely disengaged from any other object, naked 

 and "unprotected. 



AVe omit a descrijition of the ijdoi/o, because 

 the description of xnntltdmadDiti given below 

 covers them as nearly as any thing we could 

 give, and we quote tlie deseriiilion of two dif- 

 feicnt insects in <leference to the opini<ui of 

 thost- who suppo.sed this insect to be (Jakrttca 

 rahnariensis. 



"(.'((/( rurarnlmaricnsis, I/in. — Oblong-ovate: 

 above testaceous: deeply ]iunctured; crown, 

 furrow on the thorax, scutelluni, a dash on the 

 elytra, breast and base of the abdonv.'U black; 

 apex of the abdomen and base of the antennuj 

 testaceous. (L. '2—'2i 1.) Aquatic plants; Lon- 

 don district; Weston; Bristol; Swansea." 



" Oalerwu Xdnllitniuvlend, Schon. — Oblong- 

 ovate, llattish; above griseous-yellow, thickly 

 puncluied; crown with a triangular black siM>t, 

 and another geminateil one at lh(^ base of the 

 anteinue; thorax with three black .spots; elytra 

 with a long black dash within the margin, and 

 a short streak near the middle; legs dull yellow, 

 thight, with a dusky spot wiUioiit, tibia witha 

 black streak, hinder pair bent. (L. .'il.) Elms; 

 London district."— From Steiiheus' Manual 

 British Colidptera, containing brief descri|>- 

 tions of all the si)ecies of beetles hitherto itscer- 

 tained to inhabit Great Britain and Ireland. 

 London, ls:j<.l. 



" Galirwa admariensis, Lin. — •' Elm (iale- 

 ruca.' An oblong oval beetle O.2.") long, of a 

 grayish yellow color, with three small black 

 .spots on the thorax, a broad black striiH' ou 

 tile outer part of its wing covers, and a small 

 oblong spot near their base; though originally 

 named by Linnu'us from ;i small .seajiort town 

 of Sweden, is conunon over the chief part of 

 Europe, feeding upon the leaves of the elm, to 

 which it is sometimes very destructive. It lias 

 been introduced from llience into this country, 

 and on its lirst appearance in the (rity of Balti- 

 more some twenty years ago, it and its larva;, 

 which are thick cylindrical blackish six-footed 

 grubs, wholly denuded the elms of their leaves, 

 for several successive sea.sou.s." — From Fitch's 

 5th Report, 18511. Ins. N. Y. 



What Dr. Harris says about this insect, in 

 his otherwise excellent work, is not of the le;i.st 

 assistance in determining its species. He 

 merely states the fact of an in.sect called Gale- 

 rura cidmariensis, which in its larva and ma- 

 ture states depredatis upon the leaves of the 

 elm trees, but aside from this there is no posi- 

 tive evidence that he had ever seen a specimen 

 of it. 



We should probably have ticketed this in- 

 sect G. c(dmari(nsis, without any hesitation, 

 from Dr. Fitch's descriiition alone, had we not 

 had Stephens' prior description al.so before us; 

 in which he conspicuously omits the marginal 

 dash or stripe, and states that that s]>ecics 

 feeds on aiiuatic plants instead of the elm. 

 But it is not necessary here to repeat all the 

 distinctions between adiiiurknsis and xuntlio- 

 viirUna. tor the foregoing descriptions, from 

 Stephens' work, will [ilainly show those distinc- 

 tions; and, although neither of them may en- 

 tirely cover the insi'Ct we have under consid- 

 eration, the weight of their testimony, to our 

 apprehension, is in favor of the latter named 

 species, and any one who chooses to do so can 

 make tlie comparison for himself; but from 

 these descriptions, we cmild easier conclude 

 that the pre.siiit subject is a sitecies differing 

 from both of them, rather than that it is the 

 former. Therefore, mitil the question is de- 

 cided by more conqietent authority, we feel dis- 

 posed to ticket our insect X(i(i(/io)ii(i /out. Schon. 



Since writing the foregoing we add the fol- 

 lowing from Dr. John L. Lcconte, to whom we 

 had submitted specimens for his examination : 



"Deaii Siu: The G(drriica you have, so in- 

 jurious to your elms, is G. xitntliomehtna. 

 Gylleuhal, iii error, deserilwd it ;us calmariensis 

 Fab., quite a different siiecies. 



Very sincerely youre, 



J. L. Leconte. 



Philadelphia, Stpt. Uh, 187C." 



There is a slight orthograidiical diflerence 

 between Dr. l/cconte's rendering of the sl>ecific 

 name and that in Stephens, but this is unim- 

 portant in the history of the insect. — Ed. 



