186 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



139.] 



ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



White Grub Fungus— /o«. Smith, StewartmlU, 

 De Kill}) Co., >&.— The White Grubs which you send, 

 with the peculiar sprouts at their heads, are attacked by 

 the same fungus which we spolce of both on pages 77 

 undOl of the "present volume of the Entomologist. 

 The annexed Figure represents one 

 of these white grubs thus attacked, 

 though the sprout on one of those 

 which you send is much longer than 

 represented in the cut, and meas- 

 ures fully two inches in length. For 

 the bene'tit of our readers we quote 

 the descriptive part of your letter: 

 '•I send j'ou two yellow-headed grub 

 worms with sprouts or protuber- 

 ances from the vicinity of the mouth; 

 Colors— green anil on one ot them the sprout is now 

 whitish. quite fresh and green, hut it will be 



quite dry wlien it arrives, for they shrivel in a few hours 

 when out ot the earth. Grub worms, last season, de- 

 .stroyed corn, potatoes, meadows audmany other crops, 

 to aconsiderable extent in this vicinity. I have been in 

 Missouri twenty -five years, and never knew them half 

 so bad. There are many such specimens, and they create 

 much interest and speculation. They are generally 

 found about one and a half inches fromthe surface of the 

 ground, and the worm is always dead. Some persons 

 are growing them . " We shall be glad to learn of the 

 success or failure attending the etforts which . are being 

 made to grow them, and we should be glad to receive 

 specimens, enclosed in a tight tin box, filled with moist 

 cfirth, so that we might receive them fresh and green. 



T. J. Freeman., Bethany, Mo.—Ks you may learn from 

 the above Figure 123, the "curious shrivelled grubs" 

 which vou send are attacked by this same fungus. We 

 are glad to learn from our Missouri exchanges that this 

 fungus is quite common in the northwest part of the 

 State, and that it has very generally attacked and killed 

 the White grubs in Harrison, DeKalb, Kay and .Jackson 

 counties in that State. 



"Buck; Fly"— <?eo. W. Cophij, Alton, BU.—'Xow 

 enclose a water color drawing of a moth, which you 

 say "was once very common in this vicinity, .and is 

 called in the backwoods parlance, a Buck Fly."' Tou 

 further remark that "' they arc said to lay their eggs in 

 the nostrils of the deer, from whence they crawl, after 

 hatching out, up into the head. I cannot speak 

 'knowingly' of this, but I have seen the head of a 

 deer full of worms about an inch iu length, which were 

 perhaps the larva; of this moth." The colored figure 

 represents a moth which maj; be known as the Buck 

 Moth — the Saturnia [HucJironia] Maia, lliilin. There 

 is no foundation whatever for the idea, which seems to 

 be prevalent in your neighborhood, that they deposit 

 their eggs in the nostrils of deer. They have been 

 dubbed "Buck Fly" or "Deer Fly" simply because 

 they appear in the "fall at the time the deer run. Their 

 eggs are deposited, out West, on the Scrub Willow and 

 different species of Oak. The larva; are covered with 

 prickles, and are at first entirely black, and feed iu 

 company. When full grown they have a yellow band, 

 variegated \vith short black lines, on each side of the 

 body, and besides the compound spines they also have 

 tufts of rufous bristles, while the head and collar are 

 cnestnut-brown. During the month of August they 

 descend into the ground, where they change to chest- 

 nut-brown chrys'alids without spinning any cocoon. 

 From these cocoons the moths soon afterwards cmei'ge . 

 The larva; are said to feed also on the Wild Cherry^ and 

 their prickles are reputed poisonous, though we were 

 never stung by them. The worms you found iu the 

 head of a deer belonged doubtless to some two-winged 

 fly (CEstrus family), the larva; of many of which are 

 known to inhabit different parts of living animals; but 

 the larva; of no scaly-winged insect (ortler Lepidop- 

 TBRA) are known to occur lu such situations. 



Snrarms of minute Flies in Rooms — 'S*. S. 

 Bathvon. — The minute dipterous insects which you 

 send belong to the genus Hciara, as kindly referied for 

 us by Baron Osten Sacken. Their larvse commonly 

 occur lu flower-pots, and lieuce the occurrence of the 

 flies iu your friend's room. The species is doubtless 

 undeseribed. 



IPorms in Osage Orange Seed — Alfred Plant, St. 

 Zouis, Mo.— We have never succeeded in breeding the 

 dark brown objects which you find among your Osage 

 Orange seed, and which look not unlike small speei- 

 mens of the seed, though they are more pointed at one 

 end, and are found to be divided tr.ansversely into 

 thirteen segments, when carefully examined. They 

 are evidently the larva; of some two-winged fly, and 

 we believe they do no harm to the seed itself. We 

 have always noticed that they were most numerous in 

 badly cleaned seed, and pieces of the dried pulp oi the 

 orange, iire generally crowded with them. There are 

 many two-winged flies belonging to certain genera, 

 which breed in decomposing vegetable matter, and we 

 suspect that while the Osage Oranges are being piled 

 into heaps , in order that they may rot and the seeds be 

 morereadilv separated ti-om the glutinous pulp, some 

 species of "fly that Is perhaps peculiar to Tex.is, 

 delights to deposit its eggs on this rotting mass . The 

 lai-vse hatching from these eggs revel in the pulp, and 

 when the seeds are washed out, many such larvte will 

 inevitably pass through the sieve with them. These 

 are of course deprived of their necessary food and 

 moisture, and reach you in the dried-up condition of 

 those you send. It is because they are thus dried up 

 that we have always failed to breed the perfect fly from 

 them. They have probably been called the "Screw- 

 worm" because in their fresh state they must greatly 

 resemble the ti-ue "Screw- worm" which attacks cattle 

 in Texas, and which is likewise the larva of some two- 

 winged fly. We shall be glad if any of our Texas sub- 

 scribers will send us, during the coming summer, living 

 specimens of either the Osage Orange larvie or of the 

 true cattle ' ' Screw-worm. ' ' We may thus be enabled 

 to rear them to the perfect state, and dispel the dark- 

 ness in which the natural history of these curious in- 

 sects is now enveloped. 



Insects to l»e named. — X. Q. Z., Indianapolis, 

 lad,. — We cannot undertake to return specimens of in- 

 sects that are sent us to be named, and you are the 

 first person that ever asked us to do so. Least of all, 

 can we return them prepaying the postage thereon 

 out of our own pockets. It adds at least nine hundred 

 per cent, to the cash value of a collection of insects to 

 get it correctly named. Now, to name insects correctly 

 and conscientiously, involves considerable labor. It is 

 only fair, therefore, that those who perform this labor 

 should have the chance of being recompensed lor their 

 time and trouble, by occasionally finding a rare species 

 among the h undreds of common species that are sent on 

 to be named. If we were to return all specimens, after 

 naming them, and in addition prepay the postage 

 thereon, we should not only be working for nothing, 

 but we should tax ourselves for the privilege of putting 

 money into our correspondents' pockets. Wc respect- 

 fully decline any such one-sided operation. If you 

 choose to send on the requisite stamps, we will I'etuni 

 your insects just as wc received them and without 

 names : otherwise we cannot even do this. 



Xiie Spotted liadybird—.So?;';/-!! iSscTO's, Oshdooeu, 

 Iowa. — The beetles which you send, of which you find 

 [Fifi. 1.30.] large numbers about the roots of yoiu- Apple 

 trees , and which were ' ' lying in piles 

 vuiderthe leaves and grass, and always on 

 the south side of the tree , ' ' are specimens 

 of the Spotted Ladybird (Hippodamia maeu- 

 lata, DeGeei',) which is represented at Fig- 

 ure 130. Spare every one of them, for they 

 Colors— piuk, are your best friends ! Your observations 

 black. about their devouring the eggs of the iiotato 

 beetle are doubtless correct, and we have already 

 recorded the fact (see p. 46 of No.. 3). We cannot say 

 positively whether they will destroy the eggs of the 

 Canker worm, but have every reason to believe that 

 they will do so . 



JEggs ol the White-marked Tussock JTIoth — 

 Sam'l G. Knight, Ba cine, Wis. — The mass ot eggs which 

 you found glued to a loose gray cocoon , the latter being 

 fastened to a leaf, and the whole attached to the twig of 

 one of your plum trees, belongs to the White-marked 

 Tussock Moth {Orgyialeucostigma, Sm. & Abb.). For a 

 figure of the larva which they produce , and a fuller 

 account of it, we refer you to what was said, under the 

 same head, on page 79 of the present volume. 



