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REPLY.— * * * The caterpillar which is damaging your Catalpa tree is the 
larva of the common Catalpa Hawk-moth, Sphinx catalpw. This insect, until within 
a year or so, has been considered rather rare by entomologists, but for some reason 
has become very numerous in this section of the country. * * * The best remedy 
will be to spray the tree with London purple or Paris green in the proportion of one- 
fourth of a pound of the poison to 50 gallons of water. This, however, will be a 
difficult thing to do unless you have on your place a strong double-acting force 
pump fitted with a long hose which can be elevated into the tree, yet it is the only 
remedy which can be suggested beyond destroying the caterpillars as they descend 
the tree to transform to chrysalides in the soil.—[October 3, 1891.] 
Peach Trees injured by Gortyna nitela. 
I have some peach twigs, or rather tops, showing work of an insect entirely new 
to me and to this locality.. They have already destroyed twenty of my peach buds, 
and are at work as vigorously as ever. We cut off and destroy by fire the tops as 
soon as we find them withering. By splitting you will find a worm in the stock 
with a black belt around it. In the box is a moth and caterpillar that I found on 
the little trees.—[W. N. Irvin, Ohio, June 30, 1891. 
REPLY.—The insect which is injuring the tops of your Peach trees by boring into 
them is the so-called Stalk-borer, Gortyna nitela. This insect seldom damages per- 
ennial plants, but is found commonly boring into potato and tomato plants, corn, 
rag-weed, and various other annuals. It is therefore not a specific pest of your 
crop, and its occurrence may be held to be more or less accidental. They will 
doubtless soon leave your peaches; indeed, there is no remedy possible beyond 
pruning and burning the infested twigs before the bud-worms leave them.—[July 
3, 1891.] 
Hair Worm Parasite of the Codling Moth. 
Inclosed herewith you will find a “what is it,” found in the core of an apple by 
Mrs. A. M. Chapin of this place. When found it was nicely coiled. It assumed its 
present distorted position when exposed to the light and air.—[I. J. Jamison, Penn- 
sylvania, September 5, 1891. = 
REPLY.— ~*~ * * The specimen sent is one of the so-called hair-worms of a 
species which has several times before been found in apples in this country. It is 
parasitic on the larva of the apple worm or Codling Moth, and sometimes leaves its 
host before the latter has escaped from the fruit, and remains coiled in the hollow at 
the core of the apple. The scientific name of this worm is Mermis acuminata, and it 
has been taken directly from the larva of the Codling Moth found under bands 
placed about the tree, so that there is no doubt whatever about its being parasitic on 
the larva of this insect. A closely related species is parasitic on grasshoppers, 
erickets, and allied insects.—[September 8, 1891. ] 
False Chinch Bug in Wyoming. 
By request of the farmers of this vicinity I have sent you a bottle containing what 
is supposed to be Chinch Bugs. They were found by a farmer living about twenty 
miles from this town, who states that he shook this number from a grease-wood bush, 
and that the ground and shrubbery in that vicinity were covered with the insect. 
He found by marking the place where they were first discovered that they traveled at 
therate of one mile in three days, and were at that time working toward his wheat and 
alfalfa field. It is supposed that the insect was brought into this country from Colo- 
rado or Nebraska, as grain from these two States has of late been shipped in here, 
and the insect was first discovered on the roads leading into the town. * * *—[R. 
M. Crawford, Wyoming, August 31, 1891. 
REPLY.— * * * The specimens prove to be chiefly pupz of an insect having the 
common name of the False Chinch Bug, on account of its close resemblance to the 
