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FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 
may be, and very frequently is, a Guest; and tbe Host, who is the real guilty party, 
may be entirely unknown to them. Or, what is still more common, the bred insect may 
be a Parasite, feeding upon the body of some unknown species that had originated the 
damage, and consequently not our foe but our friend. To solve satisfactorily such 
questions as these, requires careful and long-continued observation and experiment, and 
an extensive familiarity with the habits and peculiarities of insects. And even then the 
very best and most careful entomologists will sometimes be led into error. For, 
although it is a very general rule that species belonging to the same Family of Insects 
have the same general habits, yet every now and then certain remarkable exceptions to 
the rule are brought to light. For example, I have myself bred almost a hundred dif¬ 
ferent species belonging to the great Chalcis family (Order Hymenoptera ), which I know 
to be parasites; and hundreds of others peculiar to Europe have been ascertained by 
European entomologists to be also parasitical in their habits. Hence it was supposed 
formerly that all Chalcis flies without exception were parasites. But there is now no 
doubt that, as Dr. Fitch asserted long ago, the true author of what is known as “joint- 
worm” in Virginia wheat and in Massachusetts and New York barley is a veritable Chal¬ 
cis So that in reality, although the great Chalcis family is almost universally car¬ 
nivorous in its habits, it yet contains at least one species which feeds exclusively upon 
living vegetable matter. 
To return to the Grape Curculio. The practical question still remains to be discussed, 
“ How are we to get rid of it ?” I think that, beyond all question, the mother-beetle, if 
carefully looked for, will be found laying her eggs in the young grapes some time in 
June. From the accurate figure given herewith, and from what has been already said, 
the species may, I think, be recognized with ease by the vineyardist; though, after it has 
fallen to the ground, it will hide its beak in the groove along its breast expressly pro¬ 
vided by nature to receive that very organ, and fold up its legs so close to its body, 
that it looks exactly like a round, black seed. In this position, as it “ plays ’possum ” 
and shams dead for a minute or two after it has fallen, it would never be suspected of 
being a living animal by the unwarned and inexperienced. The Grape Curculio should 
therefore, in localities where its evil works have been already noticed in preceding years, 
be watched for in June; and as soon as it appears, shaken of! the vines upon a white 
cloth, or — what will be found perhaps still more convenient — into something like an 
inverted umbrella, lined with white cloth, but modified in shape so as to suit the mode 
of training the vines which may in each case be practised. The least touch will fetch 
them off the vines ; for this whole group of roundish Snout-beetles (genus Ceuthorhyn- 
chus and its allies) drop to the earth when alarmed more readily even than the Plum 
Curculio. Indeed, I have repeatedly observed that they will often drop as soon as they 
see you looking at them, although the plant on which they are sitting be not touched at 
all. 
The Grape-grower will perhaps exclaim that the woods must be full of this Grape 
Curculio, and that it will be no use killing a few scores of them off his grapevines, 
because myriads of others will fly in upon him from the forest. I can assure him that 
this is not so. The Grape Curculio is comparatively a rare insect, though, like many 
other rare insects, nature occasionally concentrates it in considerable numbers for a par¬ 
ticular object upon a particular point, i. e. the fruit-bearing grapevine. For ten years I 
have been collecting insects in various parts of Illinois. I have in that time beaten into 
my net thousands of wild grape-vines, to say nothing of forest trees growing in their 
immediate neighborhood. Yet in all those ten years I never captured but two poor sol- 
