November 18, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



463 



Sassafras, Rhus copallina and several Oaks. A few intro- 

 duced weeds, including the ubiquitous English Daisy, are 

 scattered along the bank. 



A few miles farther we notice a gradual subsidence of 

 the embankment, the soil becomes more moist and the 

 Cane grows in dense brakes, overarching the canal and 

 effectively smothering the smaller herbaceous vegetation. 

 Soon the water of the surrounding swamp is seen to merge 

 with that of the ditch, and the Cane, finding no anchorage 

 for its tough, ligneous root-stocks, disappears almost 

 completely, its place being taken by masses of Wood- 

 wardia, which grow in from one to two feet of water, and 

 whose fronds attain enormous dimensions. Around the 

 roots of shrubs a quantity of Sphagnum lodges, mingled 

 with decaying sticks and herbage, thus affording condi- 

 tions favorable to the growth of such plants as Pogonia 

 ophioglossoides, Limodorum tuberosum, Mitchella repens, 

 Impatiens, and even Gaultheria procumbens, the flavor of 

 the winterberries borne by the latter being fully equal to 

 that of specimens from a mountain woodland farther north. 



As one nears the end of the canal, shrubs and trees be- 

 come thicker, and the Cane is again abundant. Smilax 

 laurifolia and S. rotundifolia festoon the lower branches of 

 the trees, while the Supplejack, Berchemia, the Fox Grape 

 and the Cross Vine, Bignonia capreolata, strive for the pos- 

 session of the lofty trunks. Fallen logs float on the surface 

 of the water and become converted into veritable moss 

 gardens, among which Polypodium polypodioides thrives. 



The Bald Cypress, Taxodium distichum, is apparently 

 less abundant in the swamp than formerly, and of the 

 specimens observed by our party the majority were young. 

 Lake Drummond is full of Cypress-stumps, indicating that 

 a large number of these trees once grew within its area. 

 The peculiarity exhibited by this species of forming en- 

 larged butts, or elbows, often in connected series, is 

 observable to less extent in most of the arborescent vege- 

 tation. The knees attain greater proportions in the Cypress, 

 however, and seem to be designed to obviate rapid decay 

 and to anchor the plant firmly in the depth of water that it 

 prefers. 



Lake Drummond, a sheet several miles in diameter, is 

 the centering point of the various canals and ditches pene- 

 trating the swamp. Apparently its waters nowhere exceed 

 ten feet in depth, except during the period of overflow in 

 the spring. Around its margins lie, perhaps, the most 

 densely wooded portions of the swamp, and innumerable 

 stumps and tree-trunks, still standing erect in the water, 

 tell the tale of a forest that once covered much of the 

 present surface of the lake. 



Several interesting additions to the flora of the Dismal 

 Swamp have been detected of late. Dr. Britton and Mr. 

 Hollick found Andromeda nitida during an autumn trip to 

 the swamp several years ago. Within the last two seasons 

 Dr. A. K. Fisher has collected Ilex lucida, and I have found 

 Clematis crispa in considerable quantity. It is very certain 

 that a well-equipped botanical expedition would find much 

 of interest in the still unexplored parts of this peculiar 



region. 



Washington, D. C. 



Charles Louis Pollard. 



Entomological. 



Lawn and Grass Infesting Insects. — I. 



LAND cultivated in one kind of crop for many years suc- 

 cessively tends to attract all the different kinds of insects 

 that feed upon it. In some localities where Onions were 

 grown in times past with excellent results, the Onion maggots 

 now make it impossible to raise a crop. In many parts of 

 New York stale Wheat culture was for a time abandoned, 

 because of the ravages of the Hessian fly. In parts of the 

 central west it has become impossible to grow Corn more 

 than two years in succession on the same ground, because of 

 the abundance of insects that get into it after that time. 

 Farmers have long known that after land has been in pasture 

 for a few years, or has been mowed, the grass " runs out." 

 They accept this fact and act upon it without much question- 



ing as to just what this running out consists of ; but in many 

 cases the land has become so thoroughly infested with grass- 

 feeding insects that the roots are no longer able to support a 

 growth. Insects are not confined to farms or farm-lands; 

 they occur wherever plants are grown in cities and villages, 

 and are troublesome in the back yard, in the kitchen-garden, 

 to the shade-trees, and even to the little patch of lawn in front 

 of the house. The more extensive the lawn and, in a general 

 way, the better kept it is, the more attractive it becomes to 

 insects. 



Insects of almost all orders are found in grass lands, and as 

 there are few grass plots in which there is not also some 

 clover, insects infesting this plant are also more or less abun- 

 dant. It would be of little avail to list the dozens of species 

 that we may find in such places ; but it will be useful to know 

 something of the few that are most abundantly met with, and 

 that do most injury. 



In the order Lepidoptera we find among the moths a series 

 of little species known as Crambids (see figure 60), many 



I ^ 



Fig. 60. Crambus vulvivagellus : a, the larva or root web-worm; b, a silken tube 

 above ground; c, same beneath the surface; d, moth with wings expanded ; 

 e, winffofa variety;/", moth at rest ; g; egg, very much enlarged. — From Div. Ent., 

 U. S. Dept. Agl. 



of which live in the larval stage on grass, either at the surface 

 or just below it, feeding upon the roots or cutlingoff the stalks 

 just at the level of the ground. Many of these caterpillars 

 spin silken tubes above or below ground in which they rest, 

 and from which they travel in search of food — never to any 

 very great distance, since they always make their home where 

 roots are most abundant or the grass plants most dense. The 

 caterpillars, like all insects living more or less concealed, are 

 yellowish or whitish in color, sometimes with a grayish tinge, 

 always more or less set with bristly hair; with a brown or 

 blackish head, and with the first segment behind the head 

 armed with a brown shield. They live and feed during 

 most of the summer and make their appearance in the moth 

 state from midsummer on, producing a second brood of cater- 

 pillars which emerge as moths in spring. These moths are 

 slender-bodied creatures, rarely more than half an inch in 

 length, with narrow fore wings, yellowish or brown in color, 

 sometimes mottled or streaked with golden and silver bands 

 or lines. The hind wings are always broader, but are folded 

 up so closely that they can be covered by the primaries, which 

 in turn are so closely applied to the body that the insect, when 

 at rest, looks like a little rolled-tip cylinder, easily overlooked 

 when resting on a blade of grass or on the paling of a fence. 

 The head is quite prominent and is furnished with a pair of 

 long palpi which resemble somewhat a snout, giving the crea- 

 ture, when at rest, rather a saucy appearance. These moths 

 lay their eggs either upon the blades or stalks of grasses, or 

 drop them loosely upon the ground ; the young larva in any 

 case making its way to the best feeding-place as soon as it is 

 hatched. The egg itself, while very minute, is also very 

 pretty, longitudinally ribbed, and the spaces between the ribs 

 divided by impressed lines, so that it may be rather fancifully 

 compared to a chubby ear of Indian corn. The caterpillars 

 themselves are known as root web-worms, and where they 

 are abundant in grass land they cause the death of patches 

 here and there. It is evidence <>t their pi when little 



tufts of grass die in places without obvious cause, the spots 

 increasing in size for a time, thou remaining and perhaps 

 recovering to some extent alter midsummer; while late in the 

 season other places show a similar ap . If a tuft of 



grass or a small sod, from a spot just turning brown, be re- 

 moved, and the earth shaken carefully from the roots, these 

 caterpillars will be found in their silken tubes, while cut or 



