THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



25 



l.eafy Oak-gall— 5. E. JB., PicTcens' Sia.. Miss.— 

 The cone-like leafy oak-gall which you semi, and whicli 

 we herewith illustrate (Fig. 20, a), is apparently the 



gall named (?««rf«s/ra«.?o«obyBassett, meaning literally 

 ' ' full of green leaves. ' ' You do not mention the kind 

 of oak on which it occurred, but from the fact that Sir. 

 Bassett described his as occurring on the Chinquapin, 

 yours might have been taken from this species, though 

 we have found the same gall both on White and on Bur 

 Oak. Thisgall is developed after the summer growth of 

 the tree is completed, and the axillary bud, which other- 

 wise would not burst till the spring following, is made, 

 by the puncture of the gall-fly, to develop prematurely 

 in the singular manner illustrated above. The cell 

 (Fig. 20, h, section showing larva) containing the larva 

 is half immersed in the apex of the cone, and though 

 the perfect fly is unknown, the character of the larva 

 indicates it to be Cynijiiclous. (See article on Galls, 

 Vol. I, No. (i.) 



Brop of Gold— 7?. //. M . , Pii-l-tns' Sta., Hiss.— 

 The • • drop of gold in shape of a French loaf" attached 

 to a leaf of the Shellbark-Hickory, is in reality the 

 vacated egg-shell of some large moth, and not impro- 

 bably of that large species which produces the Koyal 

 Horned Caterpillar. The smooth short-oval eggs of the 

 same large Stinking Bug, which we figured on page 12 

 of our first Volume [Metapodius tiasalus, Fig. 6,i), have, 

 even when vacated by the young bug, just the same 

 lustre of burnished gold. In July, 18C8, at Lacon, 111. , 

 we found a row of nine of these eggs, all arranged in 

 regular order, like the beads of a necklace, upon a leaf 

 of White Pine; and from these eggs we subsequently 

 hatched out the young bugs. 



The Luna OToth— (?eo. W. Einncij, Snow Ilin,Mo. 

 —The inuuense green moth with an eye-spot in each 

 wing and with each of the hind wings prolonged into a 

 tail, is the Luna Moth {Aliacus tuna, Linn.) The speci- 

 men was $ and we were glad to get the eggs which she 

 had deposited. The larva feeds on Walnut and Hickory. 



T. W. Hmjt., J)-.- The large pale green swallow-tail 

 moth which you describe is the Luna Moth referred to 

 above . 



Blag'-inotli l.arva— />;-. C. T. Farrell, South Pass, 

 m.-Tha curiou.s brown slug-like larva found on Sibe- 

 rian Crab, of which a better idea can be formed by the 

 accompanying illustration (Fig. 21) than by any des- 

 [Fig. 21.] criptivc words of ours, is the 



^^ ^^» larva of the Hag-moth {Lima- 



^^yl^^B^g^\^ oodes piiJteeium,, Sm. & Abb.) 

 ^^^^HBr When received, it had already 



^I^SflH^^^L -^ moulted its long fleshy nppend- 

 ^^^^^^^K^^^ ^S^^ "»(' attached them to the 

 /V^^^^^^ ^_ outside of its round compact 

 ^Sn^B/^^^f^ cocoon, and ten days subse- 

 ^^r^jSr quently the moth made its ap- 

 Coior-Brown. pearance. This moth is of a 



diHlcv lirnwn color, the front wiiiir;^ v.iricaiilcrl with li"hl 



ihi-i 



on Blackberries is the pnpa of the Mauy-banded Bob- 

 ber {Harpactoi- cinctus, Fabr., see Vol. I, Fig. 44.) 



M. B. Baldwin, Elgin, III.— The specimen you found 

 on a spear of grass, and from which you detached, in 

 handling, some of the appendages, is the same Hag- 

 moth larva . At the time you found it, it was evidently 

 in search of some cozy nook in which to form its 

 cocoon, for it had already commenced the operation 

 when it reached us, and the species has never been 

 known to feed on grass. 



Stinging Bug — ^. M. Shaffer, Fairfield, Iowa — 

 The singular craggy-looking bug, aboutO.38 inch long, 

 of a yellowish color variegated with brown, with the legs 

 green and a transverse deep-brown band running supe- 

 riorly across from one side to the other of the dilated 

 abdomen, is Phymata erosa, Linn. The genus is 

 characterized by the iimuenscly swollen front thighs, 

 and by the last joint of the .intennic being .also swollen, 

 this last character being a remarkable one, as Amyot 

 and Serville well remark, in bugs of such carnivorous 

 propensities. Your statemei.t that one of these bugs 

 stung you severely, does not greatly surprise us, though 

 we never heard of their stinging before, and have hand- 

 led hundreds of them with impunity. The stinging 

 was of course done by the beak, which is 3-jointed 

 and somewhat resembles that of Harpactor cinctus. Fabr. 

 (Vol. I, Fig, 44, l.) The plant upon which you found 

 these bugs we take to be Parthenium integrifoUum, and 

 Mr. A. Fender, of Allenton, Mo., is of the same 

 opinion. We have noticed them ourselves in the latter 

 part of the summer lying quietly in wait for their prey 

 upon a great variety of wild flowers, but mostly on 

 such as like themselves are of a yellowish color so as to 

 conceal them from view. We have also often seen this 

 Bug with its beak inserted into a small bee or a small 

 wasp, which it is wide awake enough to hold at arm's 

 length with its prehensile front legs, so that the poor 

 luifortunate captive has no chance to sting it. 



Pear-tree ■wrorms—B. Huthaicay, Little Prairie 

 Ronde, Mich. — The worms found on pear-tree leaves 

 are the same Red-humped Prominent noticed in the 

 answer to D. W. Kaufl'man of Des Moines, Iowa. 



■Fisherman . — We cannot tell without 

 seeing specimens, what it is that the disciples of the 

 "gentle art" call "Dobson." It may be the larva 

 either of some May-fly (Ephemera), or of some Dragon- 

 fly {Liiellula), or of a dozen other insects. 



