460 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 16 
states that there are specimens of this beetle in the National Museum collected many 
years ago in Jamaica. The writer first noted it feeding on the leaves of cultivated 
beets at Haina, Santo Domingo in 1920, and the first record in Porto Rico is feeding 
on the leaves of Amaranthus spp. at Guanica, Aug. 16, 1921. In December, 1922, a 
young planting of beets at Rio Piedras was entirely destroyed by these beetles, and a 
month later millions of them were found on the leaves of young plant cane and bean 
plants at Guanica. Amaranthus spp. are common weeds in these fields and large 
amounts of the normal host had been destroyed in preparing the fields for cultivated 
crops. The beetles were not feeding on the bean or cane leaves, merely hiding or 
resting on them. During the winter the beetles became very abundant about May- 
aguez, attacking “beets, chard, eggplant and many other vegetables,” and Prof. R. E. 
Danforth assigned the working out of their life-history to his advanced students in 
Entomology at the College of Agriculture there. In June, the writer noted a number 
of blackbirds, Holoquiscalus brachypterus (Cassin), walking about the shore of a 
small saline lagoon at Hatillo, and on closer examination it was found that they had 
presumably been attracted by the large numbers of this beetle feeding on a weed, 
Philoxerus vermiculatus, which had been defoliated and killed out over a considerable 
area by them. 
George N. Wolcott 
The Cave Cricket, Ceuthophilus, as a Possible Vector of Pathogenic Organisms. 
During the past summer spent at a camp on Lake May (or “Goose Pond” as it is 
called by the natives), near Lee, in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massa¬ 
chusetts, the numerous cave crickets (Ceuthophilus) found crawling about in the open 
privies characteristic of the camps on the lake, attracted my attention. Since cave 
crickets similar to those found in the privies were observed walking over the food on 
pantry shelves, it occurred to me that these insects are a potential menace under 
camp conditions, and I have been greatly surprised to find no reference to Ceutho¬ 
philus in the r6le of a vector of pathogenic organisms, in the literature on insects and 
disease available to me at this time! 
People in ill health frequently resort to mountain camps to recuperate, and under 
such conditions, it would be expected that the excreta in the privies would in some 
instances be contaminated with the bacilli of intestinal tuberculosis, or even of typhoid 
fever, and similar pathogenic organisms occurring in the digestive tract of human 
beings. It is quite conceivable that Ceuthophili walking over such contaminated 
material, and later finding their way to the kitchens and pantries near by, might 
readily contaminate any food over which they might crawl; and if such food were 
eaten uncooked, it is quite possible that infection might result, especially in persons 
whose resistance to disease was weakened, and who had come to the mountains in 
a “run down” condition, to rest and recuperate. 
vSince Ceuthophilus is usually a crepuscular or nocturnal wanderer, one is usually 
unaware of the numerous crickets prowling about his pantry shelves, and this doubt¬ 
less accounts for the fact that we do not hear more about the danger of these 
crickets carrying disease under camp conditions. It seems to me, however, that 
the menace is a very real one, and the role of Ceuthophilus as a potential vector 
of pathogenic organisms under rural conditions, is a subject worthy of further in¬ 
vestigation. 
G. C. Crampton, Ph.D., 
Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Mass. 
