THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



149 



Fungus Diseases of Beneficial In- 

 sects. — Messrs. Ch. Brogniart and Max. 

 Cornu, in a note addressed to the French 

 Academy of Sciences, communicate that 

 they observed an epidemic in Syrphus-flies 

 caused by a fungus belonging to the genus 

 Etitomophthora. They found on blades of 

 grass thousands of dead specimens of Syr- 

 phus mellitius with the abdomen distended 

 and greasy, and evidently killed by the 

 same disease which affects our common 

 House-fly. The larvae of our Syrphus-flies 

 are among the most effective enemies to 

 Plant-lice. It thus becomes apparent that 

 our friends among the insects are fully as 

 liable to fungus disease as are our foes. 

 Even if the fly-fungus could be propagated 

 at will by the use of beer-mash, and made 

 to infect other kinds of insects, no matter 

 how diversified their habits (a fact which 

 we have good reason for being sceptical 

 of), there would yet be danger of destroy- 

 ing many beneficial with the noxious spe- 

 cies. This objection, however, applies, in 

 varying degree, to almost all insecticides. 



Early Appearance of Cotton Worm. 

 — Mr. J. M. Bell, of Boxville, Lavaca Co., 

 Tex., writes, April 29th, 1880 : 



There are cotton worms in my cotton — more 

 than usual when they first appear. There is no 

 doubt about their being genuine cotton worms. 



We had a tremendous rain this morning. 



The Goliad (Tex.) Guard of May 8th 



has the following : 



We made a short turn in the country last Mon- 

 day, and saw several farms on the Mannahuilla 

 and Perdido creeks, which were in excellent con- 

 dition. Corn and cotton were doing well, but 

 we were sorry to learn from Mr. L. H. Dreier, a 

 very successful planter on the Perdido, that the 

 worms had already attacked his cotton. His 

 neighbor, Mr. Hausman, whose cotton was well 

 advanced and very fine, was also visited by large 

 numbers of these pests. 



The presumption in such instances is 



that the worms were in the field from two 



to three weeks before being reported. Mr. 



Geo. Witting sent us, the latter part of 



April, information that the worms were 



noticed in the vicinity of Columbus, Tex., 



and specimens received at Washington, the 



forepart of May, were all in the chrysalis 



state. 



The Butterfly Tongue. — Mr. Ed- 

 ward Burgess has an excellent, and well 

 illustrated article in the May number of 

 the American Naturalist^ on the structure 

 and action of the proboscis, or tongue, of 

 butterflies. He comes to the following 

 conclusions from his study of the subject : 



From the anatomy of these parts we may un- 

 derstand that the butterfly obtains its food in the 

 following manner : The trunk is unrolled and in- 

 serted in the nectary of a flower ; at this moment 

 the muscles which suspend the oval sack con- 

 tract, and the mouth cavity is thus extended, 

 creating a vacuum which must be supplied by a 

 flow of honey through its trunk to the mouth. 

 When the mouth is full the muscular sack con- 

 tracts, the oval valve closes the aperture to the 

 trunk, and the honey is forced backward into the 

 oesophagus. The mouth cavity is then again 

 opened and the same process repeated. To pre- 

 vent the food being sucked back from the oeso- 

 phagus, it is probable that some of the numerous 

 fibers in the muscular sack, near the origin of the 

 former, can, by contraction, close its opening, 

 but in any case, as the trunk presents a free tube, 

 and the oesophagus leads into the closed alimen- 

 tary canal, it is evident that the former offers the 

 easiest route for a supply to fill the mouth 

 vacuum. 



In the muscular mouth sack, we have a pump- 

 ing organ, of action too simple to be misunder- 

 stood. As for the so called " sucking stomach," 

 its delicate membranous structure is certainly 

 not adapted for sucking functions, and it prob- 

 ably serves onl}'- as a reservoir. It is usually 

 found to contain nothing else than air, but New- 

 port asserts, that immediately after feeding, food 

 is also found in it. 



Cottony Maple Scale. — In the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Davenport Academy of 

 Natural Sciences, vol. ii, part 2, just re- 

 ceived, Mr. J. D. Putnam gives a most 

 valuable, painstaking, and thorough ac- 

 count of the above-named insect {Pulvina- 

 ria innumerabilis Rathvon), which has 

 proved very injurious to the soft maples 

 in various parts of the country, and parti- 

 cularly in and around Davenport. He 

 goes into details on the history; the egg; 

 embryo; larva; larva of the second stage; 

 development of the male pupa ; the 

 male; development of the female pupa; the 

 female; the female in winter; the female in 

 spring; contents of the ovaries; develop- 

 ment of the egg; fertilization of the egg; 

 the laying of the egg; the egg; nest; last 

 days of the female; diseases; parasites; 

 enemies; manner of distribution; effect on 

 the trees; remedies; food-plants; and other 

 species of Pulviiiaria. 



