THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



179 



10 occiu- on almost every variety grown. As 

 already stated, there can be little donbt but that 

 the greater part of the second brood of worms 

 passes the winter in the cocoon on the fallen 

 leaves; and, in such an event, many of them 

 may be destroyed by raking up and burning the 

 leaves at any time during the winter. The 

 berries attacked by the worm may easily be 

 detected, providing there is no "grape rot" in 

 the vineyard, either by a discolored spot as 

 shoAvn at Figure 12o c, or by the entire discolor- 

 ation and shrinking of the berry, as shown at 

 Figure 121) d. When the vineyard is attacked 

 liy the " rot," the wormy berries arc not so 

 easily distinguished, as they bear a close resem- 

 blance to the rotting ones. 



Many wine makers are in the habit of picking 

 up all fallen berries, and of coinwting them into 

 vi\ui2. The wine made from such berries is but 

 third-rate, it is true; but we strongly recom- 

 mend the practice, as upon racking otf the 

 juice obtained from them, countless numbers of 

 these worms are found in the sediment, while 

 unseen hosts of them ai-e also, most likely, 

 crushed with the hnsks. Those who do not 

 make wine should pick up and destroy all fallen 



POISONOUS FLOUR. 



The Dlack Snout-beetle, {SitojMlusyrandriitu, 

 Linn.), about one-fifth of an inch long, which is 

 lomraonly found in granaries preying upon 

 small grain, and which was introduced into this 

 conntry a long time ago from Europe, is the only 

 grain-feeding insect properly called " the Wee- 

 vil." The orange-colored larva, indeed, of the 

 Wheat-midge {Diplosis tritici, Kirby), which 

 infests small grain, not in the granary, but in 

 llie field, is frequently designated by this name 

 "f "Weevil;" and in the West is otherwise 

 known as the " Red Weevil," and in the East 

 as the " Milk Weevil." But this is a mere pop- 

 ular misnomer; for this last insect belongs in 

 reality to the Two-winged Flics (Order Dij)- 

 /cra), and all the true AVeevils belong to the 

 Beetles (Order Coleoptera) . 



We have recently been informed by Dr. W. 

 1). llartman, of West Chester, Pcnn., that "in 

 the South this beetle has been used successfully 

 as a substitute for the Spanish Blister-beelle 

 (Canlliuride.s), and with this advantage over 

 the foreign insect, that it docs not cause stran- 

 gury, to escape from which," as Dr. Hartman 

 further observes, "is a very great and impor- 

 tant item in the action of a blister." We are 

 not informed how the above discovery came to 

 l)c niade in the Southern States; but infer that 



it was probably from the great scarcity there of 

 the imported Spanish fly, during the late war, 

 in consequence of the rigid stringency of the 

 blockade of their sea-ports. Dr. Hartman goes 

 on to suggest, that it would be a very good idea 

 to ascertain experimentally, whether the Colo- 

 rado Potato-bug may not possess the same medi- 

 cinal powers as the Grain Weevil, and the true 

 Blister-beetles {Lyita) both native and exotic ; 

 and that, in that event, we might turn the hate- 

 ful pest to some practical account. 



There can be no doubt that great numbers of 

 this Grain Weevil are often ground up into 

 flour; and that, although the coarser and harder 

 parts of them, such as the legs, snouts and wing- 

 cases, would probabh' be for the most part re- 

 tained by the bolting-cloth, yet that a consider- 

 able portion of the body Avill be gronnd up fine 

 enough to be incorporated with the Extra Su- 

 perfine Family Flour, of which most of us par- 

 take every day. In that event, if the number of 

 Weevils should be large, the flour would un- 

 doubtedly be poisonous; for we know now that 

 these Weevils have nearly the same medicinal 

 properties as Spanish flies, and Spanish flies, as is 

 notorious, are, even in comparatively very small 

 doses, a most violent and dangerous drug to 

 take internally, and when swallowed in larger 

 doses are a deadly poison. 



That this is not a purely speculative view of 

 the subject is proved by the following passage 

 from the Transactions of the London Entomo- 

 loijical Society;* which, be it remembered, was 

 written a great many years ago, and long before 

 it was discovered in our Southern States that 

 the Grain Weevil raised as good a blister as the 

 true Blister-beetles or Cantliarides of the shops : 

 " A medical man in Madeira assured Mr. Mills, 

 that he considered the wings and the crustaceous 

 parts of the Weevil so heating to the system, as 

 to be almost as injurious as Cantharides, taken 

 internally, on a slow scale." 



May not a remarkable case, which occurred in 

 1.HG8 in the State of New York, of a particular 

 lilt of flour from a particular mill having pois- 

 oned all those who used it, and which was ac- 

 counted for at the time on the hypothesis of a 

 small quantity of lead having been ground up 

 along with the flour, be in reality explicable on 

 the theory of this flour having been manufac- 

 tured from old buggy wheat, full of this par- 

 ticular species of Weevil? At all events, no 

 flour made from wheat, containing any consid- 

 erable percentage of these Weevils, ought ever 

 to be employed for human food. Such an arti- 

 cle is only fit for the starch-makers. 



' VoJiujie I, p. 343; quoted in Cuitis's Farm Insects, p. 



