THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



HORTICULTURE. 



JUNE, 1844. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Som,e account of an Insect that attacks the Grape- 

 vine. By Dr. T. W. Harris, Cambridge, Mass. 



Our cultivated and our native grape-vines are attacked 

 by various kinds of insects, most of which are pecuHar to 

 this country. Of these insects, some differ entirely from 

 all those that inhabit the vine in Europe; but there are 

 others which closely resemble some European vine-insects, 

 and, without due examination, might be mistaken for them. 



The Procris ampelophaga, which has been found to be 

 very injurious to the vineyards of Piedmont and Tuscany, 

 is replaced here by another species of the genus, having 

 the same destructive habits as its European counterpart. 

 The young of the American Procjns^ are little yellow cat- 

 erpillars, with transverse rows of black velvetty spots on 

 their backs. The leaves of the common creeper, Ampelop- 

 sis qiiinqiiefolia, a plant belonging to the same natural fam- 

 ily as the grape-vine, appear to be their natural food. 

 Fourteen or fifteen years ago, swarms of these caterpillars 

 were observed, by Professor Hentz, upon the vine at Chap- 

 el-Hill, in North Carolina, and constant care was required 

 to check their ravages there, during several years in suc- 

 cession. How much the vine may have suffered from 

 them, in other parts of the United States, has not yet been 

 made known. Within a few years, these same insects have 

 appeared upon the creeper covering the porch of the man- 

 sion-house of the late Madam Dix, in Boston, and also 



* Procris Americana, Harris. Catalogue of North American Sphinges, in 

 Silliman's "American Journal of Scimce" Vol. XXVI, p. 316 ; and " Treatise 

 on Insects injurious to Vegetation," p. 236. 



VOL. X. NO. VI. 26 



