THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



33 



appear to injure the fruit very materially ; but 

 at some future day, it may perhaps swarm in 

 such numbers as to become a great pest. 



Mrs. Earle, whom I find to be a very good 

 entomological observer, and who has also paid 

 considerable attention to Botany, informs me 

 that honey-bees often gnaw holes, the size of 

 half a pea, into peaches and quinces ; and that 

 ' she has seen them actually commence the holes. 

 The honey-bee, therefore, can not defend itself 

 before a jury of frait growers, on the plea tluit 

 it only works upon fruit already spoilt by other 

 insects, and that "a slice off" a cut loaf is never 

 missed." 



Fencing ont the Cnrcnlio— Meeting of the Sonthern 

 Prnit-Growers' AsHociation— Hot Water vs. The 

 Apple-tree Root-lonse. 



June 26tii. , 

 A joyous company of us, including some of 

 the Cobden ladies, drive over in friend Hol- 

 comb's treble-seated carriage, wluch like an om- 

 nibus can carry any assignable number of per- 

 sons, from six up to twenty, to the fruit farm of 

 H. C. Freeman, four miles west of Cobden. On 

 the road we pass a large peach orchard, and I 

 notice that every peach tree there has got a baud 

 of wool carefully wrapped round the trunk. 

 "What on earth arc these bands of wool for?" 

 " "Well, the owner of this orchard has got a no- 

 tion into his head that curculios can not fly ; and 

 so he proposes to fence them out from liis 

 peaches by means of the wool-bands. He claims 

 that, in consequence of tliis contrivance, his 

 peaches are less infested by curculios than those 

 of his neighbors, but Ms neighbors are entirely 

 of a difierent opinion." " I wonder that he docs 

 not build a tight board-fence round liis corn- 

 field, to fence out the crows and the blackbirds ; 

 or wrap a band of cotton wool round his stove 

 pipe to keep the flies out of his house." 



On reacliing Mr. H. C. Freeman's, we sally 

 forth among his fruit trees, where I should like to 

 wander all day ; but we are soon summoned to 

 dinner, and after dinner we have to drive back 

 almost immediately to Cobden, to attend a meet- 

 ing of the Fi'uit Growers' Association. 



At the meeting Mr. C. T. Farrell infoi-ms me, 

 that he has tried pouring hot water round the 

 roots of apple trees infested by the Root plant- 

 louse, but the plan is a failure, as it only an- 

 swers for a short time. Upon further inquiry, 

 however, I ascertain that he merely used a sin- 

 gle teakettleful of hot water to a particular 

 tree, the butt of which was about one inch in 

 diameter. As the roots of such a tree probably 



extend four feet in every direction from the butt, 

 it must be manifest that, to destroy all the root- 

 lice upon the roots, a sufficient quantity of hot 

 water should be applied to scald all the roots for 

 a circle eight feet in diameter. To effect this, 

 would probably require a whole barrelful of 

 hot water. Consequently, the experiment has 

 not been tried by Mr. Farrell upon a sufiiciently 

 large scale. 



E. Leniin^'s splendid Peach Crop— Seven different 

 Cannibal Bugs preying upon the drub of the Cnr- 

 cnlio— Figures and Descriptions of them— "Pitch 

 into your Foes, but spare your Friends "-Con- 

 clusion. 



June 27th. 

 "We have another pleasant drive in friend 

 Ilolcomb's carry-all carriage to the splendid 

 fruit farm of E. Leming, a few miles west of 

 Cobden. Here we find the only full crop of 

 peaches that has been raised this year anywhere 

 in the neighborhood, and some of the earliest 

 varieties are already going to market. Mr. 

 Leming is an accurate observer of the habits of 

 insects, and he shows me the larva of a Lace- 

 wing fly (Chrysopa), inside a peach wliich has 

 been badly bored up by the Curculio, actually 

 preying upon a Curculio lai-va, one half of which 

 it has already sucked diy. He has since, as ho 

 writes me word, found over a hundred of these 

 Lacewing larvas occupied in the same good 

 work. This is entirely a new fact ; and that our 

 readers may recognize their benefactor when 

 they see Mm, and cherish Mm as the very apple 

 of their eye, we give herewith figures, first of 



a Lacewing larva (Fig. 24 b), and second of the 

 Lacewing fly itself, with its left wings omitted 

 to save space (Fig. 24 d) . Figure 24 e shows 

 the singularly small cocoon which is spun by the 

 lai-va wherein to pass into the pupa state, and 

 also the empty cocoon, with the smootMy cut 

 lid, and the hole out of wMch tMs large fly 

 comes; although, to use Dr. Fitch's gi-apMc 

 illustration, tMs is just as if a full-sized 

 hen were to hatch out of a common-sized 

 hen's egg. Li Figure 24 a may be seen 

 the curious eggs, mounted upon long, slen- 

 der, thread-like stems, wMch are laid by the 



