36 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Unfortunately, out of the six larvse captured by- 

 friend Leming, only two reached me alive , he hay- 

 ing packed three together in one box, and three in 

 another. The consequence was that, when they 

 reached me, there was but a single one remain- 

 ing in each box, the survivor in either case hav- 

 ing devoured his unfortunate comrades. The 

 old poets tell us, that lion will not prey upon 

 lion, nor tiger upon tiger ; but, for the credit of 

 the Bugs, I am sorry to be obliged to confess, 

 that almost all the cannibal species will, when- 

 ever they get a chance, eat one another up alive. 

 This, however, though certainly not a very 

 amiable propensity of theirs, we must, I sup- 

 pose, overlook and pardon, in consideration of 

 the great practical benefits which they confer 

 upon the human race, by keeping within some 

 reasonable bounds the multitudinous tribes of 

 plant-feeding insects. 



This journal has ali-eady been extended to 

 such an exorbitant length, that I will only say 

 in conclusion that I left the pleasant regions of 

 South Illinois on June 30th, and on July 2d met 

 the ad interim Committee of the State Horti- 

 cultural Society at the house of Mr. D. B. "Wier 

 at Lacon on the Illinois river. I subsequently 

 passed some very agreeable days at (Champaign 

 with " Rural," and reached Rock Island July 

 11th, having been absent from home 25 days, and 

 traveled altogether, by railroad and steamboat, 

 about 1600 miles. 



Nothing, in the course of this Southern tour, 

 surprised me more, than the wholesale manner 

 in which pip-fruit in the South is punctured and 

 ruined by various kinds of snout-beetles. In 

 the North it is quite unusual to see an apple 

 bear'ing the well-known crescent-cut of the com- 

 mon Curculio; but in the South I estimated 

 that, upon an average, every apple bore three 

 such cuts; and Dr. Hull, whom I consulted 

 on the subject, told me that he did not consider 

 this by any means an extravagant estimate. 

 When I got to Lacon, which lies but little to the 

 south of Rock Island, the comparative immunity 

 of the apple-crop from this grievous pest became 

 apparent at once ; but in Madison Co., in Jersey 

 Co., in Macoupin Co., in Union Co., in Pulaski 

 Co., and in Champaign Co., the apples seemed 

 to be almost universally crumpled and gnarled 

 by the punctures of fruit-borers. Nor must we 

 lay all the damage by any means at the door of 

 the Curculio ; for, from about a quart of punc- 

 tured apples gathered principally at Champaign, 

 I have bred since I returned home, within the 

 space of a month, no less than seven specimens 

 of the four-humped curculio (Anthonomus -i-gib- 

 bus, Say), and only two specimens of the genu- 

 ine Plum Curculio. 



THE STING OF THE 17-YEAR CICADA, i^ 



^' 



Our remarks on page 8 of No. 1, attributing 

 the reputed stinging of the 17-year cicada 

 (locust) to the Digger wasp, Stizus grandis of 

 Say, have elicited communications from two of 

 our correspondents. Mr. F. W. Collins, of 

 Rochester, N. Y., has witnessed four periodical 

 returns of the " locust," and on each occasion 

 has heard of individuals (generally boys) being 

 injui-ed by them. After giving a descripti9n of 

 the method of ovipositing he says : 



lu every case of locust stinging tbat has come to 

 my Icnowledge it has been where they occupied the posi- 

 tion long enough to drill a hole with their long ovi- 

 positor . 



If the locust can di-ill a hole in the limb of an oak 

 ti-ee, it follows that if undistm-bed, it might make a 

 hole in a boy's scalp, or through the flesh of a man, or 

 any other animal. Though this rarely occurs, it is not 

 impossible, and I am led to beheve it more probable 

 than the hornet theory. 



The second communication is from Richard 

 Richardson, of 622 Arch street, Philadelphia. 

 He says : 



I have received the first number of the American 

 Entomologist, and enclose one dollar, the subscription 

 for one year . I am pleased that you have taken in 

 hand the subject of entomology in a popular form, and 

 hope you may succeed in the enterprise. I have been 

 much interested in looking over "No . 1 , " and am much 

 pleased with the contents in general, but wish to make 

 the following criticism on the article entitled ' 'The Bug 

 Hunter in Egypt . " It attributes the reported stinging 

 of persons by the Cicada Septendecim of Lin . , as being 

 done by the Stizus grandis , or Digger wasp . But the 

 Cicada Septendecim appears in its perfect state from the 

 last of May to the beginning of July, and the Stistus 

 grandis not until the beginning of August, consequently 

 they are not contemporary insects. The locust used by 

 the Stis-iis grandis is the common annual one, which is 

 coritemporai-y with the wasp. 



I suspect' the Cicada Septendecim may, under 

 certam circumstances, inflict a wound with the ovi- 

 positor, as upon being confined in a boy's hat on his 

 head , with the natural propensity strong to deposit the 

 egg, and nothing ottering but the boys scalp, for in- 

 stance ; or under other similar circumstances. Certainly 

 an Instrument that can penetrate hard wood, could 

 easily puncture the flesh , if so disposed. 



I have known persons to be stung by the wasp with 

 no dangerous result, though more severe than from 

 other stinging insects . 



I have been acquainted with the Digger wasp' 

 (called here "ground hornet' ') since boyhood, and have 

 frequently seen them dragging locusts into their holes 

 in the ground . 



The following extract from a letter received 



in 1867 from Mr. Benj. Borden, of Noii-istown, 



Montgomery county, Pa., also touches on this 



point. Though he has heard of severe suffering 



being produced by their sting, he has never been 



able to satisfactorily trace up a case : 



In the summer of 1866 my attention was called to a 

 colony of large wasps or hornets near this town. A • 

 company of us armed with pick and shovel paid them a 

 visit. They were located on the side of a stone pike: 

 they burrowed in towards the centre of the road . Hard 

 ground appeared to be no obstacle ; when they encoun- 

 tered a stone, they turned and went around it. The 

 burrows were about three feet long, with two or three 

 galleries about one foot long. Each gallery terminated 

 m a chamber considerably enlarged . In each of these 

 chambers, they appeared to have reared one young. 



