58 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



XUe Stick-liiig'. — Edw. F. Welch, Janesmlh, Wis. — 

 Tlie loiig-bodiedj long-legged, slender, slow-moving, 

 greenish-brown insects, about three inches in length, 

 exclusive of their long, slender legs, which measure 

 each of them nearly as many inches more, are the com- 

 mon ^iS'^zci-Jw^ {Spectrum femoratum, Say) . This is the 

 best and most appropriate EngUsh nam"e for them ; for 

 they have the remarkable habit of stretching forward 

 their two front legs and their two antennas, in such a 

 manner that the four form apparently but a single elon- 

 gate limb projecting from the forepart of their bodies, 

 and the whole insect, which remains all the while per- 

 fectly motionless, looks exactly like a dead stick grow- 

 ing from the tree on which the creature happens to be 

 living. There are, however, a variety of other local 

 names for them: 1st, Prairie Alligators; 2nd, l)evil's 

 Horses; 3rd, Devil's Darning-needles; and, 4th, Wood 

 Horses. The fii'st of these four names is very inappro- 

 priate , because their home is , not the prairie but the 

 woods . The second is more properly given to the Rear- 

 horse, or Camel-cricket {Mantis Carolina, Limi.), found 

 so abundantly in South lUiuois, Missouri, and other 

 southern regions, and which is a beast of prey peculiar 

 to the South, while our Stick-bug is common every- 

 where in the Western States, and is not a cannibal but 

 a leaf-eater. The third name is more peculiarly ap- 

 propriated by the little Dragon-flies orSIosquito-hawks, 

 Avith bodies only the size of a stout pin, and often col- 

 ored mth the most brilhant ultramarine blue (Agrion 

 family), that flit sluggishly among aquatic herbage in 

 search of the various small flies and gnats upon which 

 theyprey. The fourth name , ""Wood-horse," is only 

 objectionable, because it mightbe just as appropriately 

 given to dozens of other large insects that are exclu- 

 sively found in the woods — the common Catydid, for 

 example. As to the habits of the "Stick -bug," we 

 have already said that he is a vegetable-feeder, and, 

 therefore , to a certain extent injurious, by devouring 

 the leaves of the trees and shrubs which he inhabits; 

 still, as he never occurs in any considerable liumbers, 

 and as all perennial plants are benelited by a little ju- 

 dicious summer-pruning, we are loth to set down the 

 poor "Stick-bug " as a foe, to be pitilessly extermin- 

 ated, and, if he is not to be treated as a friend, would 

 prefer to classify him as a neutral. Entomologically 

 speaking, he is of peculiar interest, because he is one 

 of the very few true Insects which never acquire wings, 

 or even the merest rudiments of wings. Thousands 

 upon thousands'of them have passed through our hands 

 in the course of eleven years' experience in collecting 

 insects: and, although we always ruthlessly destroy 

 every Cucumber-bug, Chinch-bug, and Kose-bug that 

 lies in our way, never yet did we wantonly maim or 

 kill this interesting and anomalous little creature. As 

 to the popular superstition that he is poisonous, and 

 can sting like a rattle-snake, that is simply a vulgar 

 error. He cannot even bite; or, at all events, out of the 

 thousands that we have handled with our naked lingers, 

 not one even attempted to bite u.s. Of course, if they 

 had been really poisonous, as is commonly believed, we 

 should have been in our graves long ago . . The sexes of 

 this insect differ so widely, that at first sight they might 

 be readily mistaken for distinct species. The female — 

 to which sex all the specimens sent by you belong — Is of 

 a dull brown color when mature, though when imma- 

 ture and young she is grass-green, and on her tail she 

 has only two small conical inconspicuous appendages . 

 The mature male, on the other hand, has at the tip of 

 his tail a very conspicuous, horizontally-working, 

 cun'ed forceps, which is used to embrace the abdomen 

 of the female during copulation; and moreover his 

 general color is a shining, pale olive-green, instead of 

 an opaque dull brown color. When very young, how- 

 ever, as is generally the case among insects, the males 

 are indistinguishable in color from the females. 



"Woolly lice on tlie Beech — F. 11. Guiwits, 

 Clinton, Mich. — The curious woolly lice which arc in- 

 festing the terminal twigs of the beech, and which, as 

 you remark " hiive a strange habit of continually wag- 

 ging their tails up and down" while in the wingless 

 state, belong to the genus Pemphigus. Tliis species 

 was very briefly and imperfectly described in 1851 by 

 Dr. Pitch, as the Beech-tree Blight {Eriosoma imhrica- 

 tor). It occurs both on the twigs and leaves of the 

 Beocli-troe. 



The Sheep-bot or Hcad-niagrgot.— i?o& . W. 



Scott, FrankfoH, Ky. — You send us papers, in which, 

 as you remark, "the opinion is expressed by a veteran 

 observer, that the Sheep-bot {(Estrus ovis, Linn.) pro- 

 duces its young alive ; " and, thinking that this is not 

 the normal habit of the insect, you ask our opinion on 

 the subject. European entomologists, ■ including 

 KoUar, who wrote specially upon injurious insects, 

 assert positively that the female Sheep-botfly ' 'lays her 

 eggs in the nostrils of the sheep , whence the larvje creep 

 up into the frontal sinus." {Kollar, p. 62.) On the 

 other hand, we have been personally assured by Mi- 

 Dan. Kelly, of "Wlieaton, DuPage co.. His,, that he 

 reared these flies from the grub under a tumbler, and 

 that, when opened, the fly had, not eggs, but living 

 larva: in her body. Moreover, Mr. Cockrill, in the 

 very exceUent article on wool-growing, which you have 

 cut out for us from the Dixie Farmer, asserts that he 

 "has opened these flies, when after the sheep, and 

 found over 300 hve, moving worms in one of them. ' ' 

 And we have also been assured by several intelhgent 

 sheep-growers in the West, that all the female flies that 

 they had examined contained not eggs, but living 

 larvaj. We think that these apparently contradictory i/ 

 statements may be easOy reconciled. Many flesh-flies, 

 or blow-tUes, as they are commonly called, if they can 

 not find any suitable meat or carrion of any kind to lay 

 their eggs on, retain those eggs so long in theii- bodies 

 that they actually hatch them out into living larva;, as 

 we have ourselves repeatedly remarked. Yet the nor- 

 mal habit of these same flies is to lay eggs . In the same 

 way we conceive that the noi-mal habit of the Sheep- 

 botfly is to lay eggs, and that it is only when she can 

 notflud any sheep at all to prey on, or when by any 

 means she is prevented from reaching their nostrils, or 

 when she is confined in a close vessel for an undue time 

 —as was probably the case in Mr. Kelly's experunents— 

 that the eggs hatch out prematurely inside her body, 

 and are sometimes deposited afterwards in the form of 

 living larva;, or maggots, in the nostrils of any unfor- 

 tunate sheep that she can come across . 



lieaf-niiiiers of tlie tjocxxsU—Bolt. W. Scott, 

 FratiJcfort, A?/.— The tawny orange beetles, about a 

 quarter of an inch long, with dark heads and a' broad 

 black stripe along the hinder part of their bodies above , 

 while below they are of a uniform black color, are the 

 Locust Hispa or Leaf-mining Beetle {Bispa saitellaris 

 Oliv., mistaken by Harris for the Mispa sutm-alis of 

 Eabr.) In the larva state, as was fli-st observed by Dr. ■ 

 Harris, these insects burrow in the leaves of the locust, 

 maklug their appearance, as he tells us. in the latitude 

 of Massachusetts in July, and transforming to beetles 

 in August. With you the period would probably be 

 somewhat earher, and it is not at aU improbable that, 

 as in the case of other insects, for ex.ample the Pop- 

 lar Spinner, (Olostera Americana, Harris), yoii may 

 have two successive broods of them every year dowii 

 South, while in more northerly regions there is but a 

 single brood. You say that these beetles have eaten 

 the leaves of the black locust in your section so severely 

 as to kill the trees in some caseSj and generally to injure 

 their growth and appearance; and you add that' "they 

 seem this year to have increased greatly. ' ' In all proba- 

 biUty, although no doubt the beetles feed to a consider- 

 able extent upon locust leaves, yet the principal damage 

 done in your -vicinity to the foliage of the locust was 

 through the minings of their insidious little larvK in 

 the pulpy internal substance of the locust leaf. These 

 larvio are described as beinjj whitish grubs, with their 

 front end dark-colored, and with six legs iu front; the 

 entire body being somewhat flattened to adapt them to 

 the singular place which they are to flu in nature . We 

 can suggest no remedy for tlie depredations of tliis 

 insect, other than beating the beetles oft" the trees and 

 killing them. 



lieaf-Iioppers cm Celery.— Rich. Parnell, Queens 

 Co., N. Y. — There are two distinct species belongin"- 

 to two distinct genera, mixed up together in the lot of 

 Leaf- hoppers which you send as infesting early celery . 

 Of one species you send four specimens, and of the 

 other three; and you m.ay readily distinguish the two 

 by the very dift'erent markings of the head. Both, so 

 far as we are aware, are undescribed; as indeed are a 

 great many other small species belonging to this group, 

 {Tettigonia fiimily , order Homoptera) , 



