316 Forty-fourth Report on the State Museum 



This species of fungus, according to Dr. Thaxter, is peculiar from 

 its infesting so many widely differing insects, distributed through all 

 the orders except the Orthoptera. It has been found on a Fieris 

 caterpillar; a Golias Fhilodice butterily; several species of Ichneumonidce 

 and a small bee; the common house-fly and several species of Culicidce, 

 Mycetophilidce, Tipulidae, and other families of Diptera; one of the 

 Lampyrid beetles; an aphis and on some of the leaf -hoppers 

 (Typhlocybe); a Limnophilus among the Neuroptera; and upon Thrips 

 sp. in the larva, pupa, and imago. In two instances it had been seen 

 to prevail as an epidemic. 



Professor J. B. Smith reports, that in the spring of 1890 and again 

 in 1891, the clover-leaf beetle in New Jersey (locality not stated), 

 when appearing in great number and threatening destruction, was 

 attacked and were nearly all killed when about half-grown by a 

 fungoid disease {Insect Life, iv, 1891, p. 43). In the absence of direct 

 statement, it is to be presumed that the fungus was the Entomoph- 

 thora sphcerosperma. 



Monarthrum mail (Fitch). 

 The Apple-tree Bark Beetle. 



Mr. C. M. Hedges, of Charlottesville, Va., has reported the death of 

 an apple tree, which he found '''filled from the top to the bottom with 

 a small white larva." 



The bark from the piece received easily separated from the wood 

 in comparatively thin sheets (in the more infested portions) which 

 alone remained of it. Its inner portion had been consumed by the 

 larvae which had also made part of their burrows in the wood under- 

 neath, after the manner of these bark-borers — half in the bark and 

 half in the wood. The burrows curve and run in every direction but 

 with rather a longitudinal tendency. In a few places are seen a 

 different kind of burrow, running straight the length of the trunk 

 for about an inch, with elevated margins of portions of uneaten 

 bark: leading into these margins may be seen a row of minute 

 punctures as if made by the point of .a pin, as close almost as they 

 could be made. These burrows are those of the parent beetles, and at 

 each of the lateral holes a young larva had entered the bark after 

 hatching from the egg — a row of eggs having been placed in 

 little niches excavated for their reception on each side of the burrow. 

 At the end of one of the straight burrows, a dead beetle (one of the 

 parent beetles doubtless) was found on peeling off the bark above it, 

 permitting the identification of the architect as Monarthrum mail. 



