374 



NEW TOEK STATE MUSEUM 



found in the burrow was in all probability that of Gortyna cataphracta 

 Grote, described and figured in Proc. Ent. Soc. Phila., iii, 1864. The" 

 following brief notes were made of it: It was six-tenths of an inch 

 long, the head and collar pale red, head and first segment with a black 

 stripe laterally; body with a dorsal and lateral stripe of white, which 

 are widened over segments 8 to 10; beneath black on segments 3 to 6, 

 elsewhere while. Caudal plate pale red, with a broad black lateral 

 line. Legs black, stout. Spiracles in the black stripe oval, black, 

 annulated with white. Prolegs on 8 and 9 white, with the two spots 

 above them brown; prolegs on 7 and the terminal pair also white. The 

 caterpillar, not maturing, was placed in alcohol in the State collection. 



Not Frequent in the Raspberry. 



This attack of G. cataphracta is either rare, or its operations, when 

 noticed, are referred to the work of some other of the well-known 

 and common raspberry-cane boreiv. It is not mentioned in Saunders' 

 Insects Injurious to Fruits, nor in Professor Webster's Insects Affect- 

 ing the Blackberry and Raspberry ', published in December, 1892, 

 wherein 87 species are noted. (G. nitela, the " stalk-borer," is recorded 

 without particulars as boring in the stems of the raspberry.) No men- 

 tion of it is made by Dr. J. B. Smith in his several notices of insects 

 affecting the raspberry in New Jersey. 



Bred from Various Plants. 



The caterpillar, as might be suspected from the known habits of that 

 of Gortyna nittla, by no means confines itself to raspberry canes, and 

 its occurrence therein may be exceptional. 



In the Sixteenth Annual Report of the Entomological Society of 

 Ontario (1886), Mr. Fletcher reports his having bred for the first time 

 (in 1885) Gortyna cataphracta, which had been very destructive 

 during the last three seasons by boring into the stems of various kinds 

 of plants, more especially lilies and raspberries. 



Later, in 1893, Mr. Fletcher wrote me, in reply to inquiry made, that 

 he had several times bred G. cataphracta from raspberry stems; also 

 from the stems of lilies, burdock, Amarantus and, in fact, from almost 

 any kind of large, juicy-stemmed plant, even including grasses. He 

 has kindly sent me, with permission for its use, the following careful 

 and detailed description of the caterpillar,- found by him on July 14, 

 boring into the fruit of a gooseberry: 



Description of the Caterpillar. 



Larva slender, 35 mm. long, dark purplish-brown, with three white, 

 conspicuous, unbroken lines, one dorsal extending from segment 3 to 



