THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



297 



orioles, when rearing their young, would keep 

 a quarter of an acre clear of beetles and larvse. 



This Oriole is not native or abundant in this 

 part of the country. The gentleman alluded to 

 above told me he well recollected seeing the 

 first that he had ever known here, and on mention- 

 ing it and describing the bird he could not gain 

 credence, as no one to whom he spoke had ever 

 seen anything of the kind in this locality. This 

 was about forty years ago. I should think some 

 of your correspondents who live where the Oriole 

 is more plentiful, can answer my quer}% and say 

 whether this is a general habit of the bird, or 

 only an accident of time or place. — E. W. Clay- 

 pole, Yellow Springs, O. 



Destruction of Fruit by Aletia.— The Aletia 

 moths are still here in very great numbers. They 

 are feeding now mainly upon the late apples and 

 persimmons. The}' have destroyed all the wild 

 grapes. In parts of the county, the moths are 

 swarming around the Sorgho-evaporating-pans, 

 and they are somewhat troublesome to the syrup- 

 makers. They are also feeding upon the prick- 

 ly-pear {Cactus opuntia), a fact hitherto un- 

 known to me. — Jas. F. Bailey, Marion, Ala., 

 Oct. 8, 1880. 



Rare Beetle injurious to Sweet-potato roots 

 in Louisiana. — I send you a Sweet-potato with 

 more matured larv?e of Cylas formicaritis. Keep 

 it in a warm room, as cold weather will kill the 

 larva:. Since 187S they are e.xtremely rare and 

 difficult to obtain. I believe that the heavj'^ frost 

 that year (3 inches ice in the streets here) killed 

 nearly all, but they seem to increase again. Tn 

 1877 I raised 640 Cylas out of 11 potatoes. 

 Cooked potatoes containing the larvas turn so 

 bitter that no chicken or hog will eat them. 

 They will, in time, ruin the whole crop in the 

 South. — Wm. Mische, New Orleans, La., Octo- 

 ber 19th. 



Aletia in New York State.— I found, Nov. 

 6, in an out-house on m)- premises, a fresh spec- 

 imen of Aletia argillacea. It is interesting to 

 note that from Oct. i6th to the 25th the weather 

 was severe, with snow and frost ; but for several 

 da3'S before Nov. 6 it had been warm. Oct. 16, 

 1878, this moth was plentiful here. — D. S. Kelli- 

 cott, Buffalo, N. Y., Nov. 9, 1880. 



ANSWERS TO Correspondents. 



Fungus Foes. — y. y. Brown, Sheboygan, Wis. 

 — The fungus you send is infested by a strong 

 colony of a small beetle, Cis fuscipes Mell., which 

 is very commonly met with in all sorts of fungi 

 that grow on old trees and logs. It belongs to 

 the family Cioidce, the numerous species of which 



are all known to inhabit such fungi. As these 

 fungi are quite useless to man, the beetle cannot 

 be considered as injurious. 



The Twig Girdler. — 1 send you by mail a spec- 

 imen of a Coleopterous insect, which, they say, 

 is sawing off with its mandibles sapling pear 

 trees, and branches from older pear trees. 1 

 send you also a specimen of a young pear tree 

 sawed off by it. You will gratify a great deal of 



[Fig. 1.5.5.] 



Oncideres cingulatus— rt, larva; /», pupa (after Riley). 



curiosity, which has been excited among those 

 who have suffered by its ravages if you will 

 kindly inform me what the name of this insect 

 is, among entomologists, and whether it has any 

 common name. — Wm. Rod. Maxwell. 



The insect sent is a rather large female of the 

 Tvvig-Girdler {Oncidei-es cingulatus Say), which 

 we herewith figure in its different stages. An 

 account of it was given on page 76 of the first 

 volume of this magazine. It is known to girdle 

 a great number of different trees, amoi;g which 

 may be mentioned Hickory, Elm, Persimmon, 

 American linden. Pear, Apple, Peach and Plum. 

 Both sexes of the beetle feed upon the bark of 

 the hickory, but only the females, so far as we 

 are aware, girdle the twigs. After partly girdling 

 a particular twig she lays a number eggs in the 

 distal portion that has been killed, each egg 

 usually inserted just beneath 

 a bud. The twig usually, 

 though not always, breaks off 

 by th2 force of the wind during 

 winter, and the larvje flourish 

 upon the dead wood as it lies 

 upon the ground, burrowing 

 just beneath the bark, and when 

 very numerous leaving little 

 else than the outer bark. The 

 beetles do this work in the fall 

 of the year. The young larva 

 hatches and works a short dis- 

 tance into the twig before 

 Oncidekhscingu- winter sets in and continues 

 Hngf^^?pointXr; working through spring and 

 egg is inserted; i, summer, transforming to pupa 



form of girdle ; <■, j . o 



egg, extracted (after only towards autumn. Some 

 ^''^y'- writers have stated that two 



years are required for its development. While 

 this may be true farther north it is not true of the 

 latitude of St. Louis where we have reared the in- 

 sect repeatedly from the egg. 



