222 
commonly grown in the gardens of the outlying districts; but our En- 
glish fruit-growers in those days were profoundly ignorant of the 
simpler means of dealing with these enemies. pe: 
AN ENEMY OF THE TUSSOCK MOTH. 
Under the above heading ‘the Pacific Rural Press of November 7 
prints some interesting notes concerning a new coleopterous enemy of 
Orgyia leucostigma. Extracts are given from two letters, both from 
Watsonville, Cal., bearing on this subject. Mr. W. R. Radcliff says: 
‘““They seem to be a ‘sure shot’ on the eggs of the Tussock Moth, and 
are plentiful and industrious,” and Mr. James Gally reports that there 
was “scarcely a sound bunch of eggs” to be found in the orchard be- 
longing to his father’s estate. Specimens of the insect that has been 
doing such efficient service were shown to Mr. C. W. Woodworth, of the 
University of California Agricultural Experiment Station, who pro- 
nounced them to be the larve of a beetle of the family Dermestide. 
The specimens sent him perished, unfortunately, and he was conse- 
quently unable to refer them to the exact species. 
THE ‘‘ BLACK VINE-WEEVIL”—A HOT-HOUSE PEST. 
In a letter recently published in the Hntomologist’s Monthly Magazine 
(Vol. 11, No. 19, second series) Mr. Theodore Wood furnishes some notes 
on the so-called Black Vine-weevil (Otiorhynchus sulcatus Fab.), which 
he finds destroying the fronds of the ferns in his greenhouse. The 
beetles were observed at night clinging to the fronds and nibbling their 
edges. Little more than the midribs were left by them in some cases. | 
The insects had hibernated as larve in the pots, and the pupze and 
freshly developed beetles were found buried in the earth. The writer 
believes the insect quite partial in its tastes, attacking, in his experi- 
ence, chiefly the Hart’s Tongue (Scolopendrium vulgare). 
Mr. W. W. Fowler, in an editorial comment, mentions having received 
the same species from a gardener who had found it destructive to 
Maiden Hair ferns in one of his houses. The larve were found at the 
roots. 
Mr. E. A. Butler, in No. 20 of the same volume, adds that he has found 
O. sulcatus and what appeared to be its larva damaging a species of 
Saxifrage. | 
This insect has already been referred to in Vol. 11, of INSECT LIFE 
(pp. 37-38). It is a northern species, common to Europe and North 
America, and what Mr. Wood regards as its favorite food plant, the 
fern Scolopendrium vulgare, is also common to both hemispheres. Dr. 
Hagen has recorded the beetle as having damaged the flowers and in 
some cases the bulbs of Cyclamens in greenhouses in Massachusetts, but 
