36 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



springs to push the troughs under the vines so that their inner 

 edges are close to the stems or posts as the case may be. The 

 outer slope of each trough is a 3 foot strip of oilcloth stretched 

 over a frame, while the inner is a 10 inch rubber belt 11 feet long. 

 These sloping sides guide the insects so that they fall into the 

 eaves trough, which is divided into small sections by a number of 

 water-tight compartments each of which contains a quantity of 

 water with a small amount of kerosene floating on its surface. 

 The whole machine, as will be seen by the illustrations, is a home- 

 made affair, and was built simply to test the practicability of the 

 idea. The dimensions are as follows : length 12 feet, width 5 feet, 

 hight 7^ feet, length of trough 11 feet, of runners for same 12 

 feet, diameter of wheels 2-J feet. It can undoubtedly be made 

 considerably more efficient; the troughs, for example, should be 

 broader in order to accommodate more insects and debris. The 

 common wooden springs could be replaced by steel ones and the 

 rough wooden wheels by well made wooden or iron ones, and, 

 instead of being on a fixed axle, it would be a decided advantage 

 if they were on a swivel axle. All these improvements can be 

 easily made later in case the machine commends itself to 

 growers. This device was drawn over two rows of approximately 

 120 vines and took therefrom 1583 beetles, or an average of about 

 13 to a vine. This was at a time when not over 17 could be 

 counted on a vine, though there were probably more. The entire 

 operation consumed less than 20 minutes, and, somewhat to our 

 surprise, the efficiency of the machine appears to be a little higher 

 than that of the Hough beetle catcher. It was also operated over 

 nine other rows and 3300 beetles secured, an average of about 

 six to a vine. These rows were not quite so badly infested as the 

 two mentioned above. The record of collecting with this machine, 

 in addition to that above, is of interest and is given herewith. 



July 2, 2650 beetles were taken from two check rows, which 

 were in reality but one and one half rows, owing to many of the 

 vines being very small and some missing. June 30 and July 1, 

 72,000 beetles were captured with this machine from all the ex- 

 perimental plots. July 7, 34,550 and July 14, 8380. Comparing 

 the last three catchings, which were all from the entire area, 

 it will be seen that there is a decrease of over 50$ between the 

 catch of July 1 and 7 and that the catch of the 14th was less 



