172 
They take a portion of the grains out of the heads they attack. They are not very 
numerous, perhaps three or four ina rod square. I am at a loss to know what they 
are or whether they will materially injure our wheat. My neighbors also have 
them.—June 16, 1883. 
~ * * JT have just returned from a walk around a 20-acre field of wheat. My 
object was to pick off a dozen more of those worms to send you. To my utter sur- 
prise, though making diligent search, I found but three, one of which I lost on my 
way to the house. Only a week ago I could have found any number of them in 
heads of wheat, the same inclosed. You are evidently clearly right in saying we 
need not apprehend much damage from them. ‘Their time is of short duration and 
seems to be confined to the period soon after the wheat is in head. I don’t think 
they affect the kernels when fully formed.—June 25, 1883. 
Fia. 13.—Dolerus arvensis Say, female (original). 
D. arvensis is easily distinguished from other species of the genus by 
ics general blue-black or violaceous color. The female, Fig. 13, is con- 
siderably larger than the male, and is further distinguished by having 
the prothorax and mesothorax more or less rufous. The male is uni- 
formly blue-black, and was described and still appears in the lists as 
D. unicolor. 
East of the Rocky Mountains the species is generally distributed 
and abundant. The National Collection contains twenty-five specimens 
of this species as against four each of D. collaris and D. sericeus. These 
were received from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, Mis- 
sourl, Illinois, and Ohio, those from Ohio being received from H. Keenan, 
Quaker City, who took them on pear buds which he said they were 
injuring. 
That they do no injury whatever to the buds or bloom of the Pear, 
but frequent them merely to lap up nectar or grains of pollen from the 
petals, has been shown by Prof. 8. A. Forbes, in his Third Report on 
the Insects of linois, pp. 100-102. Prof. Forbes and other writers 
refer to this insect as breeding on the Willow, the only authority for 
which seems to come from the occurrences of the adults abundantly 
about the bloom of the Willow in the spring, where they are attracted 
by the bloom merely, as they are also to the bloom of Pear and other 
trees. 
