25 
feed extensively on all wood borers and bark borers. The downy woodpecker 
has been seen working at the base of apple-trees, doubtless to secure the 
round-headed borer; and it is an efficient destroyers of codling-moth 
larva*. In the specimens sent, the bird was evidently after the borers, 
every hole leading to a burrow. The balance of testimony is strongly in. 
favor of even the sap-sucker. 
Southern Illinois.—Curculio Experiences. (Prairie Farmer, June 35, 1872, 
v. 43, p. -.) 
When peaches are tolerably abundant, a good crop can be harvested in 
spite of the curculio. Disputed question whether there is more than one 
brood, and whether it ever hibernates, at least in numbers, in the imrna- 
I ture state, answered by the weight of testimony in the negative. Facts 
opposed to this conclusion are the capture of pale soft adults on canvas, 
finding adults in spring with clay sticking to them as though just 
emerged, and accessions to their numbers in the latter part of June, re¬ 
quiring longer period of attention to save fruit. Measures now practiced 
are jarring into curculio catchers of canvas, on frames, or to the ground, 
where they gather under chips and are captured. 
The Army Worm. (Prairie Farmer, June 29. 1872, v. 43, p.-.) 
In Iowa. Larva and its habits of travel described. Eggs are laid at 
the roots of grasses. Moth described. The sudden increase of the army 
! worm occurs when a wet or tolerably wet season follows a very dry one. 
I Causes producing periodical increases are imperfectly understood. Fitch’s 
explanation quoted, and objected to. No single-brooded insect, like the 
army worm, can be greatly multiplied in one year. Eggs from which the 
worms of this year are hatched must have been laid by moths of the pre¬ 
ceding year, and undoubtedly in low grounds. Remedies: Burning mead¬ 
ows, especially sloughs and low ground, in fall or winter before eggs 
hatch in the spring: fall plowing to bury eggs or starve young: obstruct¬ 
ing progress of the worms by plowing furrows across their path: allowing 
hogs and poultry to feed on the larvae of which they are very fond. 
Reports received of injuries by cankerworm in Wisconsin and parts of 
Illinois. 
Cutworms, and Brief Notes on Insects Sent. 
v. 43, p. -.) 
(Prairie Farmer. July 13. 1872, 
j Cutworms very abundant in Illinois and contiguous states on the north, 
east, and west. Astonishing report from Michigan of the number caught 
under small wads of clover, about as large as an apple, placed upon the 
ground over night. From these, worms were captured by the thousand, 
thirty to eighty to each wad, 15,000 being killed on June 4. They are all- 
night feeders, lying torpid through the day, sometimes under shelter, but 
more commonly burrowing in the ground. Clover, as used above or thrown 
'loosely in mats on the ground, chips, etc., may be used as traps. They 
may also be dug by hand from their burrows near the injured plants. 
I Climbing cutworms are sometimes quite destructive to dwarf and nursery 
‘trees. Cutworms flourish best in light loamy or sandy land. 
Geopinus incrassatus , a rare beetle from Illinois. 
Chrysobothris femorata injuring soft maples at Rantoul, 111. Anoint trees 
with soft soap. 
Laphria thoracica killing honey bees at Jacksonville, Ill. 
Egg mass of tent caterpillar of the apple on twig of currant from Iowa. 
| Wood-Borers in general , and the Pecan Hickory Borer in particular. (Prairie 
Farmer, Aug. 10, 1872, v. 43, p. -.) 
A few of the wood borers are larva? of moths, but the great majority 
are larvae of Coleoptera. These eat their way but a few inches each year. 
They are footless, traveling by friction against the sides of their burrows, 
except the Ptinida 1 and Bostrichida* [Ptinida 1 ], which have six short feed. 
