NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 667 
tended to surprise me with a little basket full of nice bunches, garnished 
with crisp green leaves. The first glance at the grape-vine banished all 
doubts on this point. There were an abundance of bunches on the vine, in 
a rather immature condition of course, but of foliage there was not a trace. 
Of “course I expressed my surprise, though, for certain reasons, I felt 
s 
ornament, and use, which produced no foliage. He rebuked my igno- 
rance pretty sharply, and told me that a few weeks before the tree was 
covered with leaves; but, for some inexplicable reason, they had all dis- 
appeared — eaten, he guessed, by something. e guessed right. There 
were at least a hundred of the larva of A. octomaculata, the rear guard of a 
mighty host, wandering about the branches, apparently for the purpose of 
making sure that no little particle of a leaf was left undevoured. Pretty 
little things they were, with harmoniously blended colors of black, yellow 
and blue, snes so apai ae ane. I had the curiosity to walk through 
all the stre to the of Third avenue, as low as Twenty-Third 
street, waa ev nk vine was in the same predicament. If grape-leaves, 
instead of fig-leaves, had been in request for making aprons, and our 
Alypia had been in existence at the time, I doubt if in the whole of the 
Garden of Eden enough material would have been found to make a gar- 
ment of decent size. The destruction of the crop for 1868 was complete 
disaster, and when I explained that it was the caterpillar of a beautiful 
little black moth, with eight whitish yellow spots on its wings, which had 
eaten up the foliage, my assertion was received with such a smile of 
incredulity, as convinced me that*there is no use in trying to humbug 
- such very sharp fellows as are the New York grape growers. 
It is a little remarkable, however, that the destruction was confined to 
the eastern part of the city. I saw several luxuriant vines on the western 
side; and across the river at Hoboken, and at Hudson City, not a trace 
of A. octomaculata was discernible. 
The insect, then, is very local in its habjts, and it is a day-flier; and, 
m these facts, I infer that its ravages may be very materially checked 
A sale poisoned molasses, exposed in the neighborhood of the vine, 
Te operate on the perinet insect; while * good syringing, with soft 
oie some one to try these remedies, and if their rener for my good 
objection to receiving a few bunches of their first — grapes, if such a 
step T afford them any relief. — W. V. ANDREW 
Tur BLUE-BIRD.—I see that Dr. T. W. Brewer, in his article in the 
Atlantic Almanac for 1868, on the ‘ Song-birds of North sce speaks 
of the Blue-bird as having made its appearance in Massachusetts once as 
early as the 15th of February. I have met them once on pe Cape earlier 
