1366 
1h*  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
November  3,  1923 
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I 
! 
Questions  About  Insects 
Answered  by  Prof.  Glenn  W.  Herrick 
Millipedes 
I  send  you  a  box  containing  a  new  kind 
of  a  crawling  worm,  or  whatever  it  is.  I 
am  very  curious  to  know  what  it  is. ,  I 
found  it  near  a  lilac  bush  on  the  lawn. 
You  will  notice  the  great  number  of  legs 
it  has.  j.  j.  p. 
New  Hampshire. 
The  so-called  “crawling  worm”  is  a 
common  millipede  or  “thousand-legged” 
worm.  There  are  many  kinds  of  milli¬ 
pedes,  and  most  of  them  have  hard, 
brown,  cylindrical  bodies  like  this  one. 
The  body  of  a  millipede  is  divided  into  a 
large  number  of  ring-like  segments,  nearly 
b  or  example,  in  this  particular  millipede 
I  find  there  are  at  least  52  of  these  seg¬ 
ments,  each  of  which  bears  four  legs. 
Therefore,  this  individual  has,  at  least," 
208  legs,  so  many  that  I  should  think  it 
would  get  badly  mixed  up,  and  hardly 
Know,  at  times,  whether  it  was  going  or 
coming.  A  naturalist  with  imagination 
and  fine  sense  of  humor  composed  the 
following  doggerel  verse  on  the  centipede, 
which  has  only  half  as  many  legs  as  the 
millipede : 
A  centipede  was  happy  quite 
Until  a  toad  in  fun 
Said,  “Pray  which  leg  moves  after 
which  ?” 
S?is/?,i8ed,  her  doubts  t0  such  a  pitch 
She  fell  exhausted  in  the  ditch, 
Not  knowing  how  to  run. 
Millipedes  are  harmless  to  human  be¬ 
ings.  for  they  are  not  poisonous,  and  live, 
for  the  most  part — perhaps  entirely — on 
vegetable  matter.  Some  of  them  live  in 
greenhouses  and  become  somewhat 
troublesome  at  times,  but  most  of  them 
live  in  the  fields,  where  they  occasionally 
eat  potatoes  and  certain  garden  vege¬ 
tables.  Millipedes  possess  certain  glands 
in  the  body  which  give  off  a  pungent  ex¬ 
cretion  that  in  some,  at  least,  smells  very 
much  like  sulphuric  or  hydrochloric  acid. 
Possibly  this  odor  serves  to  protect  them 
from  their  enemies. 
Trouble  With  Locust  Trees 
We  have  some  beautiful  locust  trees 
m  our  yard  and  recently  discovered  a 
brown  worm  working  under  the  bark. 
W  ill  you  tell  me  whether  they  are  locust 
borers  and  what  can  be  done  to  kill 
same  i  The  wood  of  the  tree  seems 
sound,  (but  we  thought  it  reasonable 
that  they  would  kill  the  trees  in  time  if 
allowed  to  remain.  w.  k.  r. 
The  locust  borer  is  whitish  in  color 
and  bores  into  the  solid  wood  of  the  tree. 
The  brown  “worms”  working  beneath 
the  bark  of  the  locust  trees  can  hardly 
be  the  true  locust  borer.  The  brown 
“worms,”  whatever  they  may  be,  are  an 
indication,  however,  that  the  bark  of 
the  tree  may  be  dying  and  that  some¬ 
thing  may  be  injuring  the  trees.  It  is 
impossible  to  say  definitely  without  ac¬ 
tually  examining  the  trees.  When  locust 
trees  are  infested  with  the  borer  the  bark 
shows  holes  through  it  and  here  and 
there,  in  the  crevices  of  the  bark,  will 
be  seen  a  whitish  sawdust — like  material 
that  the  borers  have  thrust  out.  More¬ 
over,  swollen  places  usually  •occur  along 
the  trunk  and  limbs  of  infested  trees  and 
soon  the  branches  begin  to  die. 
Two  Ladybird  Beetles  Which  Are  Black 
Sheep 
A  recent  issue  of  The  Country  Gentle¬ 
man  pictured  our  little  friend,  the  lady¬ 
bird  beetle,  in  such  bad  company  as  the 
cutworm,  potato  beetle  and  other  well- 
known  rogues.  I  have  supposed  the 
ladybird  to  be  not  only  harmless  hut  a 
great  destroyer  of  sucking  insects.  How 
about  it?  ir.  w.  B. 
Ladybird  beetles,  as  a  group,  are 
among  our  most  beneficial  insects,  for 
they  live  upon  and  destroy  great  num¬ 
bers  of  insects  that  are  exceedingly  in¬ 
jurious.  For  example,  ladybird  beetles 
are  particularly  fond  of  plant  lice,  es¬ 
pecially  the  green  apple  louse,  the  rosy 
apple  louse  and  the  cabbage  aphid. 
Whenever  one  finds  aphids  abundant  on 
apple  trees,  cabbage,  cherry  trees  or 
other  plants,  one  is  almost  sure  to  find 
certain  ladybird  beetles  present  on  the 
plants  and  eating  up  the  aphids. 
Unfortunately,  there  are  two  species 
of  ladybird  beetles  that  are  herbivorous 
and  live  by  eating  certain  plants.  One 
of  these  is  known  as  the  squash  lady¬ 
bird  {Epilachna  borealis)  and  the  other 
is  the  notorious  Mexican  bean  beetlo 
( Epilachna  corrupta) .  The  squash  lady¬ 
bird  is  not  abundant  enough  to  be  a  very 
serious  pest,  but  the  Mexican  bean  weevil, 
which  was  formerly  confined  to  the 
Southwest,  New  Mexico  particularly, 
suddenly  began  within  the  last  few  yeais 
an  eastward  and  westward  march  until 
now  it  has  reached  the  Carolinas  on  the 
east  and  Ohio  on  the  north,  and  every¬ 
where  it  has  gone  it  has  proved  to  be  a 
serious  pest  to  beans  and  very  hard  to 
control.  These  are  the  two  black  sheep 
of  the  family,  and  just  why  the  latter 
one  has  suddenly  taken  to  wandering  all 
over  the  United  States  instead  of  re¬ 
maining  quietly  in  the  Southwest  where 
it  has  formerly  been  content  to  stay  is 
a  mystery.  It  is  not  the  only  insect, 
however,  that  has  “cut  up”  in  this  way 
and  is  certainly  not  the  last  one  to  do  it. 
A  Stinging  Caterpillar 
From  the  following  description  could 
you  tell  me  the  name  and  remedy  for 
this  caterpillar-like  creature?  The  one  I 
have  here  is  about  2  in.  long  and  the 
main  color  is  green.  We  have  found  it 
on  our  plum  trees.  There  is  a  red  stripe 
extending  alongside  of  its  body  from  the 
posterior  end  nearly  to  the  head,  only 
lacking  about  one-half  of  an  inch.  There 
is  also  a  white  stripe  just  below  the  red 
extending  the  same.  The  body  seems  to 
be  made  up  of  11  segments  besides  the 
head.  On  each  segment,  extending 
from  the  stripes  on  one  side  to  the  stripes 
on  the  other,  are  foflr  little  clusters  of 
bristle-like  structures  which  are  also 
green.  The  four  on  the  head  seem  to  be 
longer  and  less  bristle-like.  Then  below 
the  stripes  on  each  segment  is  one  of 
these  bristle-like  structures.  These  struc¬ 
tures  seem  to  be  poisonous,  because  when 
you  happen  to  touch  it  it  is  like  nettles. 
The  spot  which  is  touched  turns  white 
ana  later  red.  This  seems  to  be  their 
only  means  of  self-defense  with  excep¬ 
tions  of  color.  It  seems  to  have  seven 
pairs  of  feet,  three  pairs  near  the  front 
and  four  toward  the  hack,  besides  a 
clamp-like  structure  on  the  posterior  end. 
This  insect  is  very  injurious  to  the 
leaves,  as  it  lias  nearly  stripped  a  leaf 
in  the  past  half  hour.  F.  A. 
The  description  given  might  almost  be 
credited  to  a  trained  entomologist,  it  is 
so  clear  and  accurate.  There  is  no  mis¬ 
taking  the  insect  from  this  description. 
It  is  the  common  caterpillar  of  the  Io 
moth,  a  well-known  stinging  caterpillar, 
probably  the  most  common  and  familiar 
of  the  15  or  20  stinging  caterpillars  in 
the  United  States.  The  green  bristles 
tipped  with  black  contain  a  poisonous 
material  that  irritates  the  skin  just  as 
F.  A.  describes  it.  In  the  case  of  some 
persons  the  irritation  proves  serious, 
causing  much  swelling  and  sometimes 
severe  pain. 
The  Io  caterpillars  do  not  usually  oc¬ 
cur  in  enough  numbers  to  cause  serious 
injury  to  the  plants  on  which  they  live, 
and  it  seldom  becomes  necessary  to 
spray  for  them,  although  they  can  be 
killed  with  arsenate  of  lead. 
Storing  Horseradish  in  Pit 
Can  I  take  up  horseradish  late  in  the 
Fall  and  keep  it  in  the  cellar  packed  in 
lake  sand?  Would  it  be  better  to  pit. 
same  as  potatoes,  covering  it  with  straw 
and  earth?  Will  the  roots  keep  their 
full  strength  if  so  packed  or  pitted,  or 
■wou’d  it  be  stronger  if  left  in.  the  ground 
all  Winter?  I  want  to  use  this  horse¬ 
radish  as  early  in  the  Spring  as  it  can  be 
had.  but  I  must  wlait  until  the  frost  is 
out  of  the  ground,  and  then,  being  wet, 
the  ground  gets  lumpy  and  hard  to  work 
from  being  trampled  down  by  digging  up 
the  roots  l.  s.  k. 
Horseradish  can  he  dug  in  November, 
before  the  ground  freezes,  and  stored  in 
pit  or  cellar.  It  is  better  to  be  put  in 
pit,  as  the  moist  earth  keeps  it  from  wilt¬ 
ing,  and  it  will  not  be  injured  if  it  freezes 
a  little.  If  put  in  cellar  it  will  keep 
packed  in  sand,  but  it  is  liable  to  be  kept 
in  too  high  a  temperature,  which  will 
start  it  to  sprouting,  and  in  that  case 
will  lose  some  of  its  strength.  Storing  it 
in  a  pit.  it  can  be  kept  without  sprouting, 
and  will  retain  its  full  strength. 
WM.  PERKINS. 
