ACTING STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
25 
vines in that region ” by this same Borer in 1867. In the same Monthly Report it is stated 
that “ a correspondent in Cincinnati writes that a new enemy has attacked the grape¬ 
vines in that vicinity, and describes its work as similar to that of the North Carolina 
MJgeria polistiformis Lastly, in the summer of 1867, Mr. C. S. Jackson, ol Danville 
Kentucky, sent me specimens of the larva of this very same insect, along with pieces of 
the grape-vine roots on which it was operating. “ Here in Central Kentucky,’’ he says, 
“ I have noticed, for a year or two past, spots throughout the vineyards suffering from 
decay ; and where the vines are taken up and examined, this worm is found on almost 
every root.” „ . ,. 
Now, Danville in Kentucky lies about a hundred miles to the south of Cincinnati, 
Ohio, but it actually lies about ten miles to the north of Cobden, in Illinois, where 
grape-vines are beginning to be grown pretty extensively. Consequently, even if it 
should turn out that the Cincinnati correspondent of the Agricultural Department has 
raised a false alarm, yet as this pernicious borer indubitably exists in large numbers a 
Danville, there is a reasonable probability that it may within a few jeais, now a 
grapes are being grown so extensively, spread from that point into Southern and Cen¬ 
tral Illinois. It may perhaps have even done so already. Hence it appearsi to e a 
useful precaution to describe the insect and its operations in such a manner, that it may 
be recognized at once, wherever and whenever it may occur, by our Illinois to iape 
growers ; more particularly as, being hitherto considered an exclusively Southern msec , 
it is entirely unnoticed in Dr. Harris’s excellent book on Injurious Insects, and on y 
receives a passing notice of eight lines in Dr. Fitch’s very useful Reports on the Noxious 
Insects of New York. 
Unlike the common Peach Borer, this larva lives exclusively undeigroun , 
mother-moth depositing her eggs on the collar of the grape-vine close to the earth, and 
the young larvae, as soon as they hatch out, immediately descending on to the roo 
They seem to confine themselves entirely to the bark and sap-wood of the roots, leaving 
the heart-wood untouched, which of course renders their operations much more des¬ 
tructive to the life of the vine. The roots that I received from Kentucky were inter¬ 
nally sound and solid, but externally they looked all of them as if a drunken carpenter 
had been diligently scooping away the sap-wood with a quarter-inch gouge, almos leir 
entire surface being furrowed by crooked and irregular channels, semicircular m tlieir 
outline if a cross-section of them was made, inside some of which lay the larvae, with then 
naked backs touching the surrounding earth. According to Mr. Krone, howevor e 
larva working underground mines and destroys the vine-roots, and being shielded by t e 
bark defies the action of remedies for its extermination.” When full-grown these larvae 
measure from 1 inch to 1% inch in length ; and are whitish, elongate, 16 -legged giu s, 
scarcely distinguishable from those of the Peach Borer. Like that insect, they form an 
oval, pod-like cocoon of a gummy substance covered with little bits of wood and dir , 
inside which they pass into the pupa state. These cocoons may be met with at various 
times through the summer near the roots of the infested vine ; and, as is also the case 
with the Peach Borer, the Perfect Moths make their appearance above ground at 
various times through the summer. According to Dr. Kron, they are found about the 
vines and on the wing in North Carolina from the middle of June to the middle of 
September, during which time they couple and lay their eggs. The following descrip¬ 
tion of the Moth, which I have not yet succeeded in rearing, is copied from Harris, 
{Rep. Am. Pom. Soc., 1854, p. 10.) 
« The moth of the Grape-vine Borer has a body of a dark brown color, more or less tinged with a 
) 
