THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



19 



ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



"Fire-Flies."— W'm- JI/cC, Mexico, Audrain county , Mo.— 

 You semi tt specimen of whiit is knowu as the "Fire-fly" 

 in your neighborhooil, aud you desire to learn sometliuig ol 

 Its natural history. The insect, which has brownish black 

 wing-covers, margined with pale yellow, and a yellow 

 thorax, with a central black spot, and a patch of rose color 

 each eiilcof it, and which was received in good condition, 

 is tlie Photinus pyralis of Linneus, and is known allover the 

 West by the name of the "Fire-lty." It is not, strictly 

 speaking, a flv, but a true beetle, belonging to the order 

 C'eLBorTKKA, aud the family Lampyrid.e. 



[FiR. 9.] 



Every one is familiar with the appearance of these beetles, 

 as their soft glow, which is ever and anon vanishing and 

 re-appearing, illumines the pleasant evenings of .July and 

 Augustj but as their transformations are not so well known, 

 weTiave prepared the accomi/anyingrigure9 in illustration ot 

 them. At a is represented the larva as it appears when Itill 

 grown. It lives in the ground, where it feeds on other soft 

 bodied insects. At times these ' ■ lire-fly ' ' larva; must suli- 

 sist almost entirely on young earth-womis, for we have 

 found them abundantly in soil, on which no vegetation had 

 grown for at least one year, and where inconsequence there 

 was scarcely another animal to be found, besides these two 

 —the "lire-fly" lan-a feeding upon the earth-worm, and 

 the latter subsisting on the earth itself. 



Kach segment of the larva has a horny, brown plate 

 above, with a straight white line running longitudinally 

 tlirough the middle, and another, somewhat curved one, on 

 each side. The sides are soft and rose-colored, and the 

 spiracles which are white, are placed on a somewhat 

 elevated, and nearly oval, dark brown patch. On the under 

 side it is of a cream color, with two brown spots in tlie 

 centre of each segment, as shown enlarged at e. Tlie head 

 (magnilled at /) is thoroughly retractile within the lirst 

 segment, which is semicircular and gradually narrowed in 

 IVont. But the most characteristic feature is a retractile 

 proleg (or "houppe nerveuae," as the French have more 

 graphically called it) at the extremity of the body, which 

 not only assists in its locomotion, but serves to cleanse the 

 head aud fore part of the body from any impurities that may 

 adhere to them after it has finished a meal. It is quite 

 amusing to watch one, as it deftly curls its body and 

 stietclies this " houppe" fan-like over its head, and literally 

 washes itself. 



When full grown, or during the latter part of June, it 

 forms an oval cavity in the earth, throws off its larval skin, 

 and becomes a pupa as represented at b. In this stage it is 

 white, with a tinge of crimson along the back and at the 

 sides, and after a rest of about ten days, it throws ofl' its 

 skin once more and becomes a beetle like the one you have 

 sent. The light, which is of a jihosphorescent nature, is 

 emitted from the tip of the under side of the abdomen , two of 

 the segments being of a sulphur yellow color, in contrast 

 with tlie rest, which arc dark brown. This light is emitted 

 both by the larva and pupa, though not so strongly as in the 

 perfect insect. 



There are other siiccies belonging to this lamily which in- 

 habit North America, and which emit a light, and tliese are 

 doubtless popularly known as Fire-flies in their several 

 districts. In some of them the females are almost or quite 

 wingless, with but very short wing-cases, but in this 

 species both sexes are winged, and nave full-sized wing- 

 cases. 



The HellKramite Fly.— D''. Jlnwman, Anrialusia, III.; Dr. 

 J. Hoke, Cordova. III.; and Mr. L. Bunce, JJuBois, III — The 

 gigantic Fly, which you have all three of you forwarded for 

 examination, we propose to illustrate iu all its stages in a 

 future article, and at the same time to give a brief account of 

 its natural history. Its scientific name is Corydalit comutut, 

 Liniiieus, aud its larva is in some parts of the West called a 

 "Crawler," aud in other parts a "Ilellgramite." 

 A New Grape-root Borer.— W. D. F. Lummis, Makanda, 



111 The gigantic borer, about two inches long, and six 



times as long as wide, which you find boring tlie roots of 

 the grape vine a little below the surface, and which in tlie 

 last two years has, as you say, already destroyed two vines 

 for you, killing them suddenly, oiieof them with ten bunches 

 of grapes on it, has been also received by us from other 



parts of South. Illinois, with the same account of its habits. 

 The largest sjieciraens are ftom two and a half to two and 

 three-quarter inches long, of a yellowish white color, with 

 asmaliliorny reddish-brown head, and with the front joints 

 of the body considerably wider than the rest, and the lirst 

 joints greatly longer than any of the others. No such larva 

 has hitherto been described as infesting the grapevine. 



This larva is manifestly that of some long-horned boring 

 beetle, but to what particular species it belongs, is not quite 

 so certain. From a larva resembling it in every respect, 

 so far as our description goes, and wliich we found in Sep- 

 tember, 1867, in decaying pine wood, we bred about the last 

 of June, 1SG8, the Cylindrical Prionus, (OrMosomo cylin- \ 



dricum, Fabr.) We have also received a similar larva, 

 which was found by Mr. O. B. Galusha, of Kendall county, 

 in Southern Illinois, boring iu the root of an apple ti-ee; and 

 in several parts of tlie Western States what appears to be the 

 same species is grievously infesting the roots of the Osage 

 orange. It has also destroyed many vines, this year, in Dr. 

 C. W. Spauldiug's vineyard in St. Louis county. Mo. We 

 hope to breed the perfect beetle from this grape-root borer, 

 when we shall certainly furnish figures of the insect botii 

 iu the larva and in the beetle state, with a conii>lete account 

 of its depredations. 



Bugs on Grape Vines Mistaken for Chinch-Bugs.— Coi. 

 Fred. Becker, Lebanon, lit. — You are quite right in saying 

 that the Chinch-bug has, in certain counties in Illinois, 



Sfeatly damaged the wheat and the com in this present year, 

 ut you are most probably mistaken iu supposing that this 

 same insect also attacks your grape vines . ' * As soon as 

 the first leaflets^" you observe, '' have started, and the bin! 

 of the blossom is visible, this little demon [the Chinch-bug] 

 begins its work, and not at the leaflets, but the bud of the 

 blossom." This is the e.xact manner in which another 

 small bug, (the Piesma cinerea of Say) , that has a general 

 resemblance to the Chinch-bug both in size and shape, 

 attacks the grape vine; aud as the true Chinch-bug has 

 never hitherto been observed to attack woody plants, such l^ 

 as the grape vine, but confines itself exclusively to herbace- 

 ous plants, such as wheat, oats, Indian corn, etc., we con- 

 clude that you have confounded the two species togetlier. 

 The Chinch-bug may be recognized by the wings when 

 folded on the hack being white, with two small black spots 

 arranged crossways on them; while the other species, which 

 is also a true bug, but belongs to a very different group 

 (Tingis family, instead of ZyotfH^ family) , is^of a greeuish 

 gray color, with a few irregularly distributed dark mark- 

 ings. The last may be found in great numbers passing the 

 winter under the loose bark of standing ,and living trees, 

 especially tlu* sluig-bark hickory. 



Leaf-hopper of the Grape.— Co(. Fred. I/ecker, Lebanon, 

 ^11.—' ' One of tile worst enemies, ' ' as you observe, ' ' of our 

 vineyards, are the grape-hoppers ; they bite olTthe clusters of 

 grapes belore they are ripe. Last year they ruined me the 

 Concord grape." AVe suppose that you refer here to the 

 dark brown Leaf-hopper (Proconia undata, Fabr.), a cyliii- 

 di-ical jumping bug, nearly half an inch long, which is very 

 common on the grape vine in South Illinois, and which lays' ,/- 

 its eggs in single rows iu the wood of the canes. Unless we '^ 

 have been misinformed, tliis bug punctures with its beak 

 the stems of the bunches of grapes, thus causing the stem to 

 wither and the bunch to fall off. Having no jaws to eat 

 with, but only a beak to suck sap with, it can not, of course, 

 *•' bite off ' ' the bimchcs of gi'apes, but the pi-actical result is 

 just the same as if it did so. This same species may often 

 be observed pumping out the sap so vigorously from the 

 canes, that it falls in a quick succession of drops from their 

 tails. In a future article we propose to give a snort account, 

 copiously illustrated by figures, of all the different insect 

 foes of tile grape, 



Leaf-Bugs. — CAos. H. Peck, Albany, N. r. — The very 

 much flattened, oval, whitish bug, about one-eighth of an 

 inch long, which you find in such swarms ou the leaves of 

 the basswood, in company with their larvie and their 

 moulted skins, are the Basswood Leaf-bug (Tingis [monan- 

 thia] mice, Walsh) . A similar species, the .Sycamore Leaf 

 bug (Tingis ciliata , Say), occurs in equal prot\ision, every- (, 

 where, from Canada to Illinois, on the imder surface of the 

 leaves of tlie sycamore, or, as you Eastern folks call it, the 

 buttonwood. What you take tor a "fungus" on the leaves 

 of the basswood sent by you, is nothing but the small, dead, 

 dark brown spots upon them caused by the punctures of the 

 beak of the insect. Many of the true bugs (orders Hetero- 

 ptera and Homoptera, to the former of which gi'oups your 

 insect appertains) , occasion similar brown spots on the leaves 

 which tliey infest, — for example, the various species of 

 small Leaf-hoppers (genus Erytkroneura) , wTiicn are so 

 destructive throughout the Union to the leaves of the grape- 

 vine. 



\/- 



Several answers to coiTespondents have been unavoidably 

 crowded out of this number, and will have to lie over till our 

 next. Our readers will bear iu mind that all queries to be 

 answered in time must be received by the 19tli of the month, 

 preceding publication. 



