REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



337 



we introduce the following, which was forwarded from the General 

 Land Office : 



Yankton, Dak., June 2, 1884. 

 Sir: We forward to yon by to-day's mail a small box containing a number of bugs 

 gathered on yesterday on the cotton wood groves in this and adjoining counties. 

 These bugs were first noticed during the season of 1883, when they were confined to 

 onlv a few timber claims in the towns 97 and 98, ranges 57, Hutchinson County, Da- 

 kota. In the fall of 1883 they had covered quite an expanse of country, and from all 

 sides reports came of the destruction of planted groves by these bugs. This spring 

 nearly everybody who owns a timber-culture claim and who has called at our oflieo 

 reported destruction of trees, and we therefore yesterday examined into it, going 

 through towns 95, 96, 97, ranges 55, 56, and 57, and found a condition which is really 

 sickening. Claimants who for years and years have planted their trees, and had now 

 succeeded in getting a good growth of trees growing, have to stand by and look on how 

 their labor of years is destroyed in a few days. Wherever they are they are by the mil- 

 lions; they eat the leaves, and it only takes a few hours to finish a tree, and those trees 

 that were attacked last year have failed to grow again this spring. So far they have 

 attacked principally Cottonwood and some box-elder. Wo would respectfully sug- 

 gest that these bugs be handed to some expert for report and recommendation as to 

 the best methods of destroying them. There ought also to be something done to pro- 

 tect claimants whose trees are now being destroyed. Most of the timber-claims in 

 the counties named have been taken from six to ten yearsago, and nearly every claim- 

 ant has apparently complied with laws, at least we counted from the'buggy while on 

 a hill yesterday thirty-six different groves, presumably all timber-culture claims, 

 where the law has been complied with, and where parties would now be entitled to 

 make proof only for these bugs. There ought to be a special act of relief, allowing 

 those parties to make proof, as to replant, and to commence all this work over again 

 will be necessarily not only a hardahip, but will, in a good many cases, bean impossi- 

 bility, the time within which proof is required to be made being too short. 

 Very respectfully, 



ELLERMAN & PEEMILLER. 



Hon. Commissioner General Land Office, 



Washington, D. C. 



Similar letters to this were received from many points in the region 

 indicated. 



OTHER FOOD-PLANTS AND FORMER INJURIES. 



This species has long been known to feed upon the leaves of the dif- 

 ferent species of Willow, but upon those trees it was never remarkably 

 abundant or injurious. Upon several of the species of Populus it was 

 also found, but its great liking for Cottonwood seems to be of compar- 

 atively recent acquirement. In speaking of this change of habit we 

 remarked as follows, in the New York Weekly Tribune for October 9, 1878: 



"The interesting feature about this insect to the forester, however, is 

 that it has of late years acquired an especial liking for the Cottonwood. 

 It has, indeed, become a most grievous pest in the Prairie States, 

 where the Cottonwood is largely grown as a shade and ornamental tree, 

 as well as for fuel. We have been surprised, in passing through Kan- 

 sas and Nebraska more particularly, at the utter devastation which 

 this beetle has produced. Yast groves have been destroyed through 

 its incessant defoliation. Now, the Cottonwood is placed by botanists 

 iu a genus different from that of the willows, and the strangest thing 

 about it is that the willows are not injured to the same degree, even where 

 growing in the neighborhood of the injured Cottonwood. This is partly 

 due, perhaps, to the fact that the Willow does not suffer so much from 

 defoliation as does the Cottonwood, though it is possible that a special 

 cottonwood-feeding race of the species has been of late years developed 

 in those sections where the tree is so largely planted. This would be 

 parallel to the well-known case of the Apple-maggot (Trypeta pomonella), 

 which, though infesting wild haws and crabs in all parts of the country, 

 22 A— '84 



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