68 
Several species of Carabidae and other predaceous Coleoptera have 
been recorded to occur in badly infested cabbage fields, with the pre- 
sumption that they had been feeding on the looper. (Rept. Dept. 
Agr. 1883, p. 120). a 
Mr. J. B. Dunn, Corpus Christi, Tex., wrote that he knew of only 
one insect that fed on this worm, a large black beetle locally known as 
"pinch bug." This insect was not sufficiently abundant, however, to 
keep the looper in subjection. Specimens kindly sent to this office 
proved to be the larva of a species of Calosoma, probably calidum, 
and the beetle Pasimachus calif or nicus. He also wrote October 14 
that a bird locall} r known as jackdaw, and which Dr. C. H. Merriani 
identifies as either the great-tailed or boat-tailed grackle (Quiscidus 
macrurus or Q. major), was particularly fond of these cabbage loopers. 
These birds would alight in the fields and feed on the larvae d'aily until 
they would "clean them up and save the crop." During recent years, 
however, hunters and others had slaughtered these birds to such an 
extent that the} T now shunned civilization. Our correspondent thought 
this bird deserved protection. 
Bacterial disease. — During July some recently collected larvae were 
found to be suffering from a disease. A larva thus affected first grows 
pale and yellow, and in a very few hours becomes weak and flaccid, upon 
death assuming an ash} r gray color, which later may turn to brown or 
blackish. Diseased larvae usually become fastened by the prolegs to 
the plant upon which the}' have fed, and hang head downward, in 
time often becoming a putrid mass much like that observed of the 
common cabbage worm when diseased. In the jar in which these 
larvae were fed a cabbage leaf had been placed which was not quite 
fresh, and, evidently as a result of feeding upon that, the remaining 
larvae contracted the distemper, and all were dead two days after the 
first appearance of infection. 
Diseased larvae were referred to Mr. B. T. Galloway, Chief of the 
Bureau of Plant Industry, who wrote that, to the best of his knowledge, 
the organism concerned in the infection had never been described or 
named, but was apparently a species of bacillus. 
What is perhaps the first mention of a disease of this insect, and 
probably the same as under present observation, was Iry Prof. Herbert 
Osbom (Bui. No. 30, n. s., 1892). He states briefly that larvae were 
attacked by a disease that swept off many of them. In Mr. F. A. 
Sirrine's account, previously cited (1. c, p. 670), mention is also made 
of the disease and its occurrence in 1894 on Long Island. Mr. Sirrine 
a The following is the list: Cralacanthus dubius, Harpalus caliginosus, II. /unmix, 
II. pennsylvanicus, and the larvse of Collops quadrimaculalus, Hippodamia convergens, 
and II. parenthesis. 
