28 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



The Trumpet Grape-§ra11— Z>. McClaine, Pier- 

 mont, N. r.— The retlilish-brown, elongate-conical 

 galls about one-third of an inch long, growing in con- 

 siderable numbers from the leaf of a \\'ild grape-vine, 

 and wiiich we represent at Figure 27, have long been 



[Fig. £7 ] 



Color— Crimson. 



.I'.nwu to US, aiul are described in our manuscripts 

 iiider the name of the Trumpet Grape-gall (Vitis 

 ■ • ms) . Like the other three grape-galls which we have 

 ;,,' ired, one of them in number 12 and the other two 

 in number 6 of our tirst Volume, (pages lOG, 107 and 

 2t',} .i. is made by a Gall-gn.at (Ceciilomijia) — thus 

 furiher exemplifying the truth of the general law, 

 iiiat when one species of any particular gall-making 

 •nus of Insects is found to inhabit a particular genus 

 I plants, many more species of the same gall-making 

 .i.nus can generally be met with ou the same genus of 

 mts. Specimens of this same Trumpet Grape-gall, 



.1 to occur on the Isabella grape-vine, were received 

 .J us three years ago from J. II. Foster, of Pennsyl- 

 . ;i!ua, as noticed in the Practical Entomohigist, I. p. 101. 

 Ve have seen very similar galls on a w ild grape which 

 '. c took for the Frost Grape ( V. cordifulia). Two years 



., a very similar kind of gall, said to grow on the 



i; \:is Mustang Grape-vine," were received by us 

 11 M W. Phillips, of Mississippi. These last, how- 



1-, iliffored in beitig green (not brown), and in grow- 

 ing' in bunches of three or four (not promiscuously) on 

 the leaf. (See Prad. Eidom. II. p. 102). Several galls 

 resembling yours and made like yours by Gall-gnats, 

 one of which has been described by Osten Sacken as 

 the Blood-red Hickory Gall {Sanguimlentu), and is of 

 nearly the same crimson color as the Trumpet Grape- 

 gall, occur on the leaves of different species of Hickory; 

 and we are acquainted with two such galls thatgrow on 

 Ilackberry leaves. 



Grape-berrjr moth — H. C. Barnard, il. D., Charles- 

 ton, ni.—Tha worms which you sent, and which are 

 injuring your grapes by boring into the berries, are the 

 larvic of the Grape-berry Moth {Penthina vi'tivorana, 

 Pack.) of which we gave an illustrated account, with 

 suggestions for its prevention, in our first volume, pp. 

 177-9. 



Oali Pruner— r. /. Pluml, Madison, Wis.— Your 

 insect is the common Oak Pruner [Elaphidion, ptdatoi', 

 Peck), of which you will find an account iu Harris's 

 'J'reatise on Injurious Insects, p. 98. 



Potato 'Bngs—Wm. R. Shelmire, Tonghhinamort , 

 Pa.— The blister-beetle which infests your potatoes so 

 grievously and also your tomato vines, is, as you sup- 

 pose, the very same Striped Blister-beetle {Lytta tittata) 

 which we gave an account of in No. 2 of our 1st vol- 

 ume, page 24, where a figure of the insect will be found. 

 In Central Illinois, in the year 18C8, we heard of an 

 entire field of potatoes being utterly destroyed by this 

 species iu a single day. The tomato being so closely 

 allied to the potato, it is not at all strange that you find 

 this little pest to like it abotit as well as the potato, 

 seeing that most of the Blister-beetles arc pretty 

 miscellaneous feeders. Your statement that it prefers 

 otli.u- \arittii> ..r |M)taio to the Mercer, or Neshaunock 

 as Wf i-all it mil W r-t, corresponds with the lact which 

 we pulili^lir.! ill [\)v passage just now referred to, 

 namely, thai it prelrrs other varieties of potato to the 

 Peachblow. It would be a curious enquiry wliich of 

 the two it would take, if it were absolutely restricted to 

 Mercers and Peachblow;s. The only approved remedy 

 against all the ditt'erent kinds of potato-eating Blister- 

 beetles, which are no less than five in number— namely, 

 the Striped, the Ash-gray, the Black-rat, the Black, 

 and the Margined Blister-beetle— is to drive them to 

 leeward with brush into some dry hay or straw previ- 

 ously prepared for their reception, and then to set fire 

 to the dry stufl" and burn them all up. 



The whitish IG-legged larva, nearly an inch in length 

 and with its head and the first ring of its body mahogany 

 brown, which you fotmd burrowing in a potato stalk, 

 is unknown to us. All that we can at present say is, 

 that it would have produced some kind of moth if it 

 had lived to maturity. As you suggest, it is <iuitc 

 difl'crent from the common Stalk Borer infesting the 

 potato, which we figured and described on page 22 of 

 our first volume, this hast larva being distinctly striped 

 lengthwise with black. If you had packed this lar\a 

 of yours according to our printed directions, in a small 

 tight tin box along with a little of its natural food, it 

 would have doubtless reached us in good health, and we 

 could have probably bred it sooner or later to the moth 

 state. As it wa«, you packed it along with a small 

 morsel of ijotato ^alk and a very large allowance of 

 cotton wool, in a pasteboard box. Consequently, long 

 before the three days expired, which it takes Uncle 

 Sam to travel from Pennsylvania to Illinois, the poor 

 unfortunate larva had perished, partly of starvation 

 but principally of drought. If you had replaced the 

 cotton wool by pieces of potato stalks, retaining the 

 pasteboard box, the insect might perhaps have reached 

 us alive; but the cotton wool effectually did its business. 

 You might as well pack a trout in dry sand and expect 

 it to live and flourish, as pack the inhabitant of a juicy 

 potato stalk in dry cotton wool, and believe that it will 

 not give up the ghost in a very short time. 



Blood-sucking Cone-nose— tf. W. C, Alton, 

 m.—Yes, the bug which by its ' ' bite " caused your 

 nephew's arm to swell so badly, is the above insect, 

 which was figured in Ajiekican Entomologist, Vol. 

 I. p. 88, (Fig. 74.) The fact that for a year after the bite 

 the child's arm would swell in the same place, whenever 

 he was unwell, is lingular. Y'our observations about 

 the perfect winged Bug preying ou the common Bed- 

 bug are new, but corroborate our inference that, in the 

 larval and pupal states, this species probably sucks the 

 juices of other insects. 



