422 BUSH-FRUITS 



be an effective, though somewhat expensive remedy, but unfortu- 

 nately some larvae escape from the fruit before it drops. One 

 grower thinks that allowing young chickens among the bushes till 

 picking time, and older fowls later, proved effective. The pupse 

 transform within an inch of the surface, so that thorough culti- 

 vation would disturb many of them, and might expose them to 

 subsequent injury during winter, or favor their being picked up by 

 birds. Eemoving an inch of soil would carry them with it. The 

 flies are thought to be so weak that a heavy mulch placed about 

 the plants while the pupae are in the ground, and allowed to re- 

 main, would prevent many of them from emerging. 



THE AMERICAN CURRANT BORER 



Psenocerus supernotatus (Say). Order Coleoptera. Family Ce- 

 rambycidae. 



Fitch, N. Y. Rep. 3 : 416. Saunders, Ins. Inj. Frts., 337. Cook, Rep. Mich. 

 Hort. Soc. 1890 : 106. 



This insect, though very similar in its habits to the imported 

 currant borer, belongs to an entirely different order. When ma- 

 ture, instead of being a moth, it is a small, narrow, brownish 

 beetle, nearly cylindrical, and varying in length from one-eighth 

 to one -fourth of an inch. The larva is a small, white, round and 

 wrinkled grub without feet. The life history is practically the 

 same as that of the imported insect, and larvae of both are some- 

 times found together in the same stalk. 



Remedies. Cutting out and burning infested stalks will prove 

 effective. 



THE IMPORTED CURRANT WORM 



Pteronus ribesii (Scop.). Order Hymenoptera. Family Tenthre- 

 dinidse. 



Marlatt Revis. Nematinas of North Amer., 61. Nematus ventricosus, 



Klug. Riley, Mo. Rep. 9 : 7. Saunders, Ins. Inj. Frts., 339. Weed, 



Ins. and Insds., 97. Nematus trimaculatus, St. Fargeau. Fitch, N. Y. 

 Rep. 12 : 909. For full bibliography, see Marlatt, 1. c. 



This most familiar inhabitant of the currant and gooseberry 

 bushes is a four- winged saw- fly, about the size of the common 

 house fly . It first appeared in the United States in the vicinity of 



