THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



77 



arrive at maturity ,*such a branch could scarcely 

 nourish seven larva?. _^How then can we account 

 for such a phenomenon? Is It an exceptional 

 case of mistaken instinct? Or does the mother- 

 beetle, in order to guarantee the success of her 

 handiwork, habitually lay a superabundance of 

 oggs, just as the Tacliina-fly (Exoiista militaris, 

 Walsh), that is parasitic upon onr'northern Ar- 

 mj-'Worm (Leitcania unipi(ncta, Haw.), lays 

 upon an average three eggs upon each worm, 

 although each worm is only large enough to feed 

 a single Tachina-fly?* Upon cither hypothesis 

 some of the young larvae that hatch out.must, 

 either occasionally or normally, be starved out 

 or destroyed by their more robust or fortunate 

 brethren, just as many kinds of spiders, when 

 they first hatch out from the egg, prey merciless- 

 ly upon one another, until only a few overgrown 

 individuals are left from the original brood. 



After the above article was iu type, we re- 

 ceived a communication on this subject from 

 our esteemed correspondent, Mr. S. S. Rathvon, 

 of Lancaster, Pa. After mentioning some of 

 the facts already given above, Mr. R. says : 



" O. cingiilatus has hitherto been regarded as 

 a rare insect in this locality, and indeed I have 

 not taken a half dozen specimens in thrice that 

 number of years ; but my entomological friends, 

 Messrs. S. Auxer and H. G. Bruckart, succeeded 

 in capturing, during the past season, some 

 seveuty-tive or eighty specimens in a single day, 

 at Silver Springs, about six miles west of this 

 city. These insects appear here in the imayo 

 state from the middle of August to the middle 

 of September, the females outnumbering the 

 males five or six to one. 



The girdling of the apple, the pear, and the 

 persimmon, spoken of by your correspondents, 

 may be by the same insect, or by an allied 

 species. I believe I have never seen these latter 

 trees girdled iu this manner in this locality ; but 

 iu the case of the hickory, very frequently." 



AN ICHNEUMON FLY MISTAKEN FOR A WASP. 



Some time ago, as we learn from Dr. D. L. 

 riiares, of the State of Mississippi, there ap- 

 peared in the New Orleans Christian Advocate 

 an article entitled '• The Stiletto ,Wasp." The 

 article was from the pen of the editor, who with 

 several professors in the College in Jackson, La., 

 had examined two of these insects. It states 

 that " the wasp was about about one and a half 

 inches long, black and yellow, with a sting three 

 and a half inches[,long, and as large as a small 

 needle ; there were also ^two hair-like append- 

 ages of similar length.^One of the insects had 

 ■struck, at a boy several times. Finally, making 



a desperate effort, the boy dodged behind a tree 

 just at the moment that the insect, throwing up 

 its tail to strike, lost sight of him and thus 

 plunged the sting a full inch into a sweet gum 

 tree, from which it could not withdraw it. The 

 father of the boy being near with an axe, cut out 

 a chip, and the sting was found to have gone 

 through it to the depth already stated." 



From the three-fold structure of the supposed 

 " sting," this insect was clearly not a Wasp but 

 an Ichneumon-fly, and iu all pi-obability the 

 Pimpla atrata of Fabricius. This species is 

 well known to penetrate the timber of growing 

 trees to a considerable depth with its long ovi- 

 positor, in order to reach the larvie of the Horn- 

 tails ( Urocerus) that burrow therein and deposit 

 an Qgg in them. In performing this operation 

 it often gets stuck fast, and is unable to with- 

 draw its ovipositor. The story of its " striking 

 at a boy," is all moonshine. All Ichneumon- 

 flies are parasitic insects, and have no stings; 

 although some few of them will, when roughly 

 handled, occasionally penetrate the human flesh 

 with their ovipositor. This however produces 

 no more pain than the puncture of a pin, as they 

 have no poison-bag at their tails, like the Wasps 

 and Bees. 



A PLANT GROWING OUT OF AN INSECT. 



W. B. Porter, of this county, has left at our office a 

 specimen of the White Grub, so formidable as a corn, 

 potato, and grass destroyer. There are two sprouts of 

 grceu, vegetable growth, irn.uini,' out of the head ot 

 the gi-uh, one on cither >iilr, ..i ii.inh Indian inch in 

 length, resembling a huu's / .>! in -liapc Mr. Porter 

 informs us that the one iin>.ntrcl i- by no means an 

 isolated example, but that niyriads oi them can be 

 found which present the same anomalous combination 

 of animal and vegetable life. AVho will explain this 

 aberration from the well settled laws of organic life?— 

 —SeJalia (Pettis Co., Mo.) P/««. 



In the second volume of the late Practical 

 Entomologist, page 16, an account was given of a 

 plant growing from the head of the " White 

 Grub." Great numbers of the grubs on Mr. 

 Paulding's place at Tipton, Iowa, were affected 

 in this peculiar manner, and the " aberration 

 from the well settled laws of organic life " spo- 

 ken of above, is veiy likely the same thing. It 

 can be explained, either on the supposition that 

 some peculiar kind of seed is poisonous to the 

 grub, although its instinct does not prompt it to 

 reject such seed as food; or that the plant is a 

 vegetable parasite peculiar to the grub. On the 

 former supposition, if we could ascertain what 

 plant the sprouts were produced from, we might 

 turn such knowledge to practical account by 

 sowing the seed of that plant, in places infested 

 by the White Grub. We should be glad to re- 

 ceive specimens of this vegetative larva. 



