THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



187 



Onrl's Velleta—Chas. H. 6., Central, J/b— The 

 oval pellet, about \}4 inch lon^, ' ' composed of tlie 

 harder portions of partly digest edinsects . " as you very 

 justly remark, and tound by yourself early last autumn 

 on the top of a fence in one of your fields, is not, as you 

 suspected, the excrement oi some animal or otlier. 

 Birds of prey, such as Hawks and Owls, have the habit 

 of disgorging from their mouths the indigestible parts 

 of their food, such as the hairy skins of mice, the 

 feathers of birds , and the hard shelly parts of insects, 

 in the form of an oval or round wad or pellet, and the 

 specimen you send is undoubtedly of this nature. Upon 

 soaking it in hot water it came readily to pieces, scarcely 

 discoloring the water and exhaling no offensive odor 

 whatever as excrement would have done. On carefully 

 examining the fragments of which it was composed , we 

 find no less than tilteen complete specimens of the egg- 

 laying apparatus situated at the extremity of the tail of 

 a certain Grasshopper (Caloptemis differentialis , Uhler 

 MS.), wiiich is intermediate in size between our com- 

 mon Eed-legged Grasshopper (Fig 65, h, p. 73) and the 

 large European species represented on page 50 of our 

 Journal (Fig. 52). Hence to compose this one pellet the 

 lives of as many as fifteen females of this Grasshopper 

 must have been sacrificed, besides those of an unknown 

 number of males, the tails of which are not hard and 

 shelly like those of the females, and are consequently 

 more completely digested. In this same pellet we also 

 found eleven jaws and a great number of the front legs 

 of this same insect; besides three of its large and very 

 conspicuous hind thighs, prettily twilled outside with 

 black and yellow, and insitle of a yellow color with two 

 large black patches. To one of these three hind thighs 

 the prickly shank was still attached. The entire re- 

 mainder of the pellet was composed of different parts of 

 the shelly crust of this grasshopper; and we could not, 

 on the most diligent search, find a single fragment be- 

 longing to any other insect. 



We cannot say for certain what particular bird it was 

 that discharged this pellet fl'om its craw, but strongly 

 incline to believe that it was some species of Owl. We 

 will endeavor to ascertain from our ornithological friend. 

 Dr. Velie, what particular speciesofOwls or other birds 

 are known to him to prey upon grasshoppers, and report 

 the result of our enquiries in the next number of the 

 A. E. 



Insects named — E. T. Dale, Yellow Spri/if/s, Ohio. — 

 No. 1, Eburia quadrigeminata, Say. No. 2, Labidomera 

 Mmaculata, Fabr. No. .3, Chrijsoinda pulchra, Fabr. 

 No. 4, Gopris aiMfilyptlcits, Say. No. 6, Tenehrio \_Nea- 

 tus] tenehrioides , Lcc. No. 7, Agonoderus pallipen , Fabr. 

 No. 8, Animdaclijhis St. Cri/cis, Lee. No. 9, Meracan- 



tka coiitmcta, heanv. No. 10, C'ionvs, ? No. 11, 



£aridiusfarctiis, Lee. No. 12, Tro.r. aqualis. Say. No. 13, 

 Pterodichus femoralis, Kirby. No. 14, Eleoiles tricos- 

 tata. Say. No. 15, Leptura proxima , Sss\,y . No. 16, 

 Aphonus trideniatua, Lee. No. 19, Pirates piciprs, H. 

 Sch. No. 20, (reotrupes cpleiulidiis . Fabr. No. 21, 

 Lygifus reclimtiis, Say. No. 22, Jps/asciaius, Say. No. 

 23, VhriiKomela cyanea, Melsh. TAo.ii, Melandrya striata, 

 Say. "So. lb, Auomala minuta, TAwnn. No. 'M, J/i/me- 

 narcys nervosa. Say. No. 27, Phymata erosa, Fabr. 

 There are a great number of species belonging to the 

 OURCULIONID.E wliich aro^iot yet described. The 

 Cionus, No. 10, we sent to Dr. LeConte, and hekindly 

 informs us that it is not yet investigated. 



Crab Apple Borers— t/. ffuggins, Woodhurn, Ills. 

 — The two borers which you took from the trunk of a 

 Crab apple tree are, as you rightly suppose, not the 

 common apple tree bo"rer — Saperda hiriltata. Say. 

 They have sixteen legs, and are, Ijcyond all doubt, the 

 larva; of some large moth. They agree very well with 

 a figure and description which we have, of a borer 

 which is found both in the Locust and in the Red Oak, 

 and which produces a large moth known as the Locust- 

 tree Carpenter-moth (A'yleiites rohiniw. Peck). We have 

 never before known of a borer of this kind inhabiting 

 the Crab, and cannot say, till we succeed in breeding 

 those which you have sent, whether it is the same as the 

 Oak and Locust boring species, or whether it is distinct. 



IVine-prong-ed IVheel-bug— .S'. C. T/iorntou, 

 Mooresfowii, if. J. — The eggs you formerly sent were 

 really those of the Nine-pronged Wheel Bug {A'ediiviKs 

 noveimrius , Say), as we have lately obtained from them 

 a number of the young of that species. 



rausqnitoes — A. M. Ahhott, Union Groxe, His. — The 

 eggs of the Musquito are laid in a bowl-shaped mass 

 upon the surface of stagnant water by the mother-fly. 

 After hatching out they finally become the "wiggle- 

 tails" or wriggling worms that may be seen in the 

 summer in any barrel of water, that is exposed to the 

 atmosphere for any length of time . Finallv , the ' • wig- 

 gle-tails" come to the surface, and the' full-fledged 

 musquito hursts out of them, at first with very short 

 limp wings, which in a short time grow both in length 

 and in stitthess. The sexes then couple, and the above 

 process is repeated again and again, probably several 

 times in the course of one season. It is a curious fact 

 that the male musquito, which may be known by its 

 fcathcretl antenna;, is physically incapable of sucking 

 blood. The musquito is not an umiiitigatedpest. Al- 

 though in the winged stati' till' fi'iiialc sucks our blood 

 and disturbs our i-ot, in tlic ha\a state the insect is de- 

 cidedly beneficial by purifying stagnant water, that 

 would otherwise breed malarial diseases. Linnaeus long- 

 ago showed, that if you place two barrels of stagnant 

 and impure water side by side, neither of them con- 

 taining any "wiggletails" or other living animals, and 

 cover one of them over with gauze, leaving the other 

 one uncovered, so that it will soon become full of "wig- 

 gletails" hatched out from the eggs deposited by the 

 female Musquito; then the coveretl narrel will in a few 

 weeks become very offensive, and the uncovered barrel 

 will emit no impure and unsavory vapors. 



I^arg-e silken Cocoon — Dr. W. W. Butterfield, In- 

 diiiiutpolis, Ind. — The empty cocoon which you send 

 is that of the Promethta moth (Attacus Promethea, 

 Drury). These cocoons are generally found on sas.sa- 

 fras, and occasionally upon wild clicVry, swamp-pink 

 (Azalea), button-busU (Vephalu nth '/.■:), poplar (Pupvhis). 

 snow-drop (Halesia), bay, and lilac. You say that you 

 found yours upon ironwood (Ostnja Firginica). But it 

 does not necessarily follow tlieretore that the larva fed 

 upon ironwood leaves. Dr. Fitch has recorded the 

 fact, that numbers of these larva; had for several 

 consecutive years fed upon an ash-tree standing upon 

 his premises, and that they invariably at matunty 

 deserted the ash, and often spun their cocoons upon aii 

 adjoining lilac, although no larvai had ever fed upon 

 the leaves of this lilac. As, however, all the lar\ie 

 belonging to this genus are pretty general feeders, it 

 is likely enough that yours led upon ironwood leaves, 

 although, until it is actually seen to do so, the fact 

 cannot be considered as firmly established. 



Bu^rs in Alcohol— /^ P. ■'<inilii. Jladdam Jee/'. 

 Ct . — The least troublesome mode of jirescrving bugs, 

 which you do not intend to study tnr throe ^ir four 

 years, is to do as you have already iloiic— put them in 

 alcohol. The alcohol must be n-|il(iiUlKil as it wastes 

 away, but need not be cliaiigiil. Alcolml channis the 

 fine grass-green of catydids and grassliuppcis to a dingy 

 brown, and scarlet it changes to a dirty salmon color. 

 It also ruins irrecoverably many hairy insects, such as 

 bumble-bees, etc.^ and it stitt'ens the connecting mem- 

 branes of the joints of all iiisci'ls, so that even the 

 longest soaking in hot watiT will ii<it make lliriii as lim- 

 ber as tho.se of a dried insect can lie readily luailc. As 

 to Two- winged FUes (/>//)^/«), and iiiotlis and butter- 

 flics (Lepidoptera), no experienced cullcctor ever puts 

 them into alcohol, because it renders tliein almost en- 

 tirely worthless as specimens. On the whole, we con- 

 sider alcohol as a kind of entomological make shift, or 

 what the French call -Apis-alhr. 



Borer in Plum Twig— If »i. Col irell, Sparta, Ills.— 

 We have since bred the Plum twi^; borer which vou sent 

 some time ago. It is the Kl.iphldi,',, [/fi/pennaJlu.i] 

 p,ir,ill' htm, Newman, as kindly delcrniined by Dr. 

 Lc Conte. This beetle greatly resemljles both in size, 

 coloration and general markings, the (•ommon Oak 

 Pruner, {Steuocorus [Elaphidio?i\ villosiis, Fabr.) and we 

 should expect from analogy that this Plum borer also 

 pruned the twig which it inhabited. The fact there- 

 fore, which you mention, that it does not so prune the 

 plum twig is interesting. 



Animals infesting 'IVells- //. C. Edrington, 

 Jiryan City, Te.ms. — We cannot tell you, without seeing 

 specimens, what the minute animais are, which infest 

 your wells; nor can we rceommcnd any other remedy 

 than that suggested on page 147 under the same head- 

 ing as the above. 



