26 Bulletin of the New Yoek State Museum. 



Podisus spinosus (Dallas). — This carnivorous Hemipter, known 

 from its belligerent propensities as the "spined 

 soldier-bug," will fearlessly attack young cut- 

 worms much exceeding it in size, and take their 

 lives by sucking their juices through its formida- 

 ble proboscis — shown in enlargement in Figure 27. 



fig. 27 -podisus Uropoda Americana Eiley.— Prof. French has 



spinosus (Dallas), a, J- - •> 



the beak or probos- observed this mite preying upon the "Variegated 

 cis enlarged; b, the t m M ti htl f as t en ed to it by means 



insect, with one wing .... . 



extended. of a peculiar stiff, elastic pedicel or cord proceeding 



from the anal portion of its body, which Duges has thought to 

 consist of the viscous and dried excrements of the animal (7th 

 Bepl. Ins. Illinois, p. 218, and Murray's Economic Entomology, 

 p. 163). 



Spiders are also known to attack and kill cut-worms in their 

 immature stages of growth. 



The Toad. — Mr. Wm. Brodie, of Ontario, regards the toad as 

 deserving of protection and introduction into gardens from its habit 

 of coming abroad at night and devouring the cut-worms which are 

 then seeking their food upon or near the ground. 



Mr. E. W. Allis, of Adrian, Mich., reports his having taken on 

 June twelfth thirty-three cut- worms from the stomach of a wart- 

 toad, Bufo Americanus (Thirteenth Report State Horticultural 

 Society of Michigan, 1883, p. 16). 



Parasites. 

 The partial immunity of cut-worms from destruction by such 

 of their natural enemies as are above mentioned, resulting from 

 the concealment in which the larger part of their lives are passed, 

 attends them also in preserving them, to a great extent, from the 

 attack of those parasitic foes which serve so important a purpose 

 in diminishing the numbers of our insect pests. Yet, as the white 

 grub, Lachnosterna fusca, is pursued and discovered in its subter- 

 ranean burrows by its enemy, Tiphia inornata, and as Tremex 

 columba falls a victim to the Thalessas, although deeply buried 

 within the trunk of maple, oak or elm, so, also, are these nocturnal 

 marauders of our gardens and fields compelled to succumb before 

 the fatal thrust of the ovipositor of their commissioned parasitic 

 foes. 



