262 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
high, dry, sandy places, in tolerably compact soil, 
and we here reproduce, in figure 2, Mr. Riley’s 
illustration of the operation of depositing them. 
The tail end of the female insect a, a, is ’furnish¬ 
ed with two pairs of horny valves, with which, 
from their peculiar structure, she is able to 
drill a hole in a few minutes, deep enough to 
bury the whole abdomen, the tip of which reaches 
an inch or more below the surface. When the 
hole is finished, she deposits the egg's, which are 
enveloped in a glutinous fluid, which holds them 
together in a long cylindrical pod, 6, which is cov¬ 
ered with adhering particles of earth. There are 
from 30 to 100 eggs laid side by side in the mass, 
each, c, about 0.15 to 0.20 inches long, pale yellow, 
and slightly curved. The engraving shows the 
female ovipositing in three different positions ; d, a 
complete egg-pod, e, one being placed, and/shows 
where one is finished and covered up. The eggs 
remain in the earth until spring, when the young 
hatch and appear on the surface. Figure 1 shows 
the young in various stages, a, a, are newly hatched 
larvae, b, the full grown larvae, c, the pupa, yhich 
in these insects is active, and from which it changes 
to the perfect insect, with fully developed wings, 
the whole from the hatching to the perfect state 
requiring about two months. The belief that those 
hatched away from their native country will not 
progress still farther eastward, is founded upon 
their previous history, and the idea that the insects 
so produced are not healthy, and do not breed. 
Several pages of the report are devoted to the nat¬ 
ural enemies of the Locust, among which, besides 
the birds, are numerous insects: a mite attacks its 
eggs ; another mite attaches itself to the insect; 
a Taehina-fly deposits its egg within the body of 
the locust, the resulting maggot from which de¬ 
stroys its host; the common Flesh-fly destroys a 
share of the feeble ones. Before such myriads of 
locusts, when they descend upon a neighborhood, 
man is powerless ; the advent is so sudden, and the 
mischief is done with such rapidity, that nothing 
will prevail against them ; but several remedies, or 
rather preventives are proposed, for use against 
those hatched from the eggs left by the horde. 
Deep plowing in the fall will turn the eggs under 
so far that but few will hatch. Where irrigation is 
practicable, flooding the ground for a few days will 
destroy the vitality of the eggs. To destroy the 
young, wingless locusts, the use of the roller is ad¬ 
vised ; they may be driven into windrows of straw, 
which is then set fire to, and the insects thus de¬ 
stroyed ; as the insects, when young, cannot fly, 
they may be driven by beating with brush, and 
when the advance guard is started in the desired di¬ 
rection, the rest follow; in this manner they are 
driven into ditches, caught in sacks and killed ; they 
may be killed with a broad wooden shovel, attach¬ 
ed to the handle at a proper angle. The young lo¬ 
custs do not like a loose surface, and keeping the 
soil loose by cultivation will do much to keep them 
away from the crops. The winged insects avoid 
smoke, and special trees and small tracts have been 
saved by keeping up a continuous smudge. Mr. 
Riley makes one suggestion which he will find few 
to adopt. The locusts eat up the food of the peo¬ 
ple, then let the people eat the locusts—he does not 
put it in that language, but he does suggest that in 
a time of scarcity and famine, locusts might be 
used as food. It is well known that a cake made 
of pounded locusts, or “ grasshopper gingerbread,” 
as one traveler calls it, is a favorite food with the 
Digger Indians, and whites might do much worse 
than try it. Mr. Riley’s Report is exceedingly credit¬ 
able to himself and the state, and we hope pro¬ 
vision has been made that so valuable a document 
may be procured by all who desire to possess it. 
Short-horns for the Dairy.- —The very com¬ 
mon idea that Short-horn cows arc useless for the 
dairy is a wrong one. The breeding of Short-horns 
for beef has, to a great extent, caused their value 
for the dairy to be lost sight of. Originally these 
were the best dairy cows, and the first Duchess 
gave during the summer, while on pasture only, 14 
quarts of milk at each milking, and each milking 
yielded 21 ounces of butter. The value of her pro¬ 
duce was then two guineas, or $10.50 a week. Chas. 
Collings’ cows were heavy milkers, oue gave 261 
quarts at a milking; another cow gave 191 quarts 
at one milking, and a cow by the “Masterman 
bull” gave 36 quarts of milk a day. Mr. Wastell, 
one of the original Sliort-horn breeders, had a cow 
that gave 36 quarts of milk a day, and 24 lbs. of 
butter a week. These cases were all reported by 
the well known Mr. Bates, the breeder of the Duch¬ 
esses. One of the heaviest milkers now living, is a 
cross-bred Short-liorn and Ayrshire cow, which has 
given 100 lbs. of milk per day., It is an injustice to 
this valuable breed that their milking properties 
should be lost sight of in the endeavor to produce 
a symmetrical carcass, which may add a little to 
their value as beef-producers only. 
The Buffalo Gnat. 
The papers have contained accounts of serious 
losses of mules and horses in some of the western 
states from the attacks of the Buffalo Gnat. Some 
of these stories have probably been exaggerated, 
but the injury has no doubt been considerable, and 
sufficient to cause alarm 
among owners of animals, 
and to awaken a desire to 
know something of the 
insect and its ways. Those 
who have visited densely 
wooded regions on sur¬ 
veys and explorations, 
or have gone to the 
Adirondacs, the back- 
woods of Maine, or any other wilderness countries, 
for hunting or fishing, have no doubt made the ac¬ 
quaintance of the “ black fly,” a very small insect, 
which comes in clouds, and each individual as per¬ 
nicious as a dozen mosquitos in one. The little 
fellow draws blood every time it strikes, and it, or 
some other one, strikes so often, that the writer 
has actually had the blood trickle down his face 
from their numerous wounds. This is Simulum 
molestum, of which fig. 1 is a much magnified 
representation, and it has been stated that the Buf¬ 
falo Gnat is the same insect; but our correspon¬ 
dent, Mr. C. V. Riley, State Entomologist of Mis¬ 
souri, informs us that there are several closely re¬ 
lated species, which are popularly called Buffalo 
Gnat, and that the insect so called in Missouri and 
Texas, is a species of Simulum as yet undescribed, 
but the points in which it differs from the common 
Black-fly are such as would be noticed by an en¬ 
tomologist only, and so far as their habits and 
changes are concerned, they may be regarded as 
essentially the same. It has been suggested that 
the Buffalo Gnat is the same as the “ Tsetze,” the 
fly which is so destructive to cattle in Africa, but 
that belongs to a quite different genus. In Hun¬ 
gary a similar fly is known as the “ Gnat of Colum- 
batz,” ns it has been especially troublesome near a 
castle of that name ; the animals are attacked by 
them in such numbers, penetrating every orifice of 
the body, and even entering the lungs, that they 
are generally killed by the severity of the inflam¬ 
mation thus caused. The European fly is especial¬ 
ly abundant in some particular years, and appa¬ 
rently the one in this country comes in great num¬ 
bers only periodically. As to preventing their at¬ 
tacks, it is probable nothing can be done, other 
than to shut up the animals where the insects can 
not reach them ; while we have seen no detailed 
accounts of the matter, we suppose that the insect 
is not noticed until the mischief is done. These in¬ 
sects pass their larval state in the water, and are 
then as unlike the perfect insect, as can be imag¬ 
ined. The accompanying engraving, (fig. 2,) from 
the “American Entomologist ” of 1869, (since then 
suspended to the regret of all naturalists,) shows 
the insect in its early life. The larva, a, is about a 
third of an inch (0.35) long, and the other figures are 
enlarged in proportion ; at its upper end, near the 
mouth, it has two singular fan-shaped appendages, 
which, it is supposed, are of service in procuring 
food. Figures 6, c, and d, give the back, front, and 
side view of the pupa. The larva (a) is often found 
in an upright position, attached to stones and other 
objects by its lower end ; it is capable of swimming 
by means of a jerking motion, and of walking by 
doubling itself up and straightening again. When 
ready to undergo its changes, the larva spins a 
silky thread, and forms a pouch attached to a leaf 
or stone, in which it hangs as at c, until ready to 
emerge as the perfect insect. The larva is able to 
spin a thread during its active state, and uses it to 
attach itself to plants and other objects in the wa 
ter ; on this account it has been charged by some 
fish culturists as being destructive to young trout, 
and it has been called the “Deatli-web” of the 
trout; on the other hand it is claimed that the 
larva can be of no possible injury to the fish, but on 
the contrary, furnishes it with valuable food. 
The Potato Rot. 
The use of a Cryptogamic Professor at the Bussey 
Institution, (the Agricultural Department of Har¬ 
vard), begins to appear. No. 15 of its Bulletin is a 
clear, straight-forward, and readable essay on the 
Potato Rot, and the fungus that causes it, to which 
is added some account of the Lettuce Mold. A 
few wood-cuts exhibit the character and appearance 
of these two pests. The article describes their 
mode of development and action, how they extend 
from plant to plant, and the conditions and circum¬ 
stances under which they become formidable. The 
little fungus which produces potato-rot, is known 
to botanists under the name of Peronospora infestans ; 
but as only a sexual fruit is known, (though that 
produces two kinds of spores), the true nature and 
name of fungus is not completely made out, 
because, as Dr. Fallow says, the oospores ( i. e., the 
spores resulting from sexual propagation), have 
never been discovered. As to this, it may be said 
that if Prof. Farlow had not been out of the coun¬ 
try at the time, he might have known that these 
long-sought oospores had been discovered in pota¬ 
toes at Washington, a good while ago, and were 
elaborately described and figured in one of the 
Reports issued by the Agricultural Department of 
the United States. We believe, however, that this 
renowned document did come to hand in the 
botanical laboratory of Strassburg University, 
while Dr. Farlow was a pupil there, and was re¬ 
ceived with ejaculations of wonder, and outbursts 
of merriment. In the present paper the subject is 
passed over with decorous silence. 
As these oOspores, or true seed, of the potato 
fungus, have eluded all search in the affected 
plants or tubers, and as we have now gained the 
right to infer that all such fungi, no less than 
higher organized plants, do have some mode of 
sexual propagation; it is a natural conjecture that 
the latter takes place only when the fungus lives 
upon some different plant, in a manner analogous 
to rust in grain, which in one state lives and fructi¬ 
fies upon the grain, in another upon the Barberry, 
file two kinds of fructification being widely differ¬ 
ent. It is suspected that clover may be the alter- 
