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REPORT
ON THE
INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS,
INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION.
a Vv
PUBLISHED AGREEABLY TO AN ORDER OF
“ THE LEGISLATURE, Fd
BY THE COMMISSIONERS ON THE ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL SURVEY
OF THE STATE,
CAMBRIDGE:
FOLSOM, WELLS, AND THURSTON,
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
1841.
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To Gerorce B. Emerson, Esaq.,
Chairman of the Commissioners
On the Zoological and Botanical Survey
of Massachusetts.
Dear Sir, ©
Upon forwarding to me my commission, in the year 1837, you
were pleased to request me to prepare a Report on the Insects of
Massachusetts.
The magnitude of the task, and various other motives deterred me
from attempting to describe all the insects which might have been
discovered by a careful and thorough survey of the whole State. A
work of this kind, — much as it might promote the cause of science,
if well done, — could not be expected to prove either interesting or
particularly useful to the great body of the people. Some idea of the
extent of such an undertaking may be formed from an onaaeadon of
the Catalogues of the Insects of Massachusetts, drawn up ) by me for
the first and second editions of Professor Hitchcock’s ‘* Report on the
Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology,”’ of this State.
Believing that agriculture and horticulture, when aided by science,
tend greatly to improve the condition of any people, and that these
pursuits form the basis of our prosperity, and are the safeguards of
our liberty and independence, I have felt it my duty, in treating the
subject assigned to me, to endeavour to make it useful and acceptable
to those persons whose honorable employment is the cultivation of
the soil.
Some knowledge of the classification of insects and of the scien-
tifie details of entomology seems to be necessary to the farmer, to
enable him to distinguish his friends from his enemies of the insect
race. He ought to be acquainted with the transformations and habits
of the latter, in all their states, so that he Te eho how and when
most sycpeestully to ereploy the means for preventing thely wavages.
This kind efskndwledg¢ will ofier guige pi am the sagcptiog at of the
proper remedies, &nd may prevent him from falling into many ‘mis-
tak@.° Not oilyethe farmer, however, but thase who,are engaged in |
other employments, would find some profit and Ree in the study
vi INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
of the natural history of insects, were the means for obtaining infor-
mation on this branch of science more generally diffused.
The plan of this Report, which I have now the honor of submitting,
through you, to the people of this Commonwealth, was suggested by
the foregoing considerations, by the want of a work on our native in-
sects, combining scientific with practical details, and by the letter of
instructions that accompanied my commission, wherein the economi-
cal advantages to be derived from an investigation of the natural his-
tory of this State, were particularly pointed out as objects of attention.
A large amount of the materials, made use of in this work, was
collected many years ago, at comparatively little cost; but, after en-
tering on my official duties, I was obliged to procure, at an expense
far exceeding the compensation allowed me, a great number of books,
in order to make myself acquainted with the discoveries and improve-
ments in entomology therein set forth. In some cases I have had to
rely on the recorded observations of others, for the want of an oppor-
tunity to make the necessary investigations myself. ‘The many ap-
plications, which I have made to various persons, for information
respecting our destructive insects, have rarely brought me any satis-
factory replies. The greater part of my first report, which was pre-
sented to the Legislature, in the year 1838, has been embodied in this,
in order to afford a connected view of the whole subject. From
among the numerous insects which are injurious to plants, I have se-
lected for description chiefly those which are remarkable for their
size, for the peculiarity of their structure and habits, or for the extent
of their ravages; and these, alone, will be seen to constitute a for-
midable host.
You have already looked over a considerable part of the manu-
script, and have been pleased to express a favorable opinion of it.
Should it prove as satisfactory to you and to the public, in its present
form, the time and labor, bestowed upop it, will not have been spent
in vain,
By your friend and servant,
THADDEUS WILLIAM HARRIS.
Cambridge, December 1, 1841.
WMO) xin tt ea
CON TiN rs’.
INTRODUCTION.
The word Insect defined, — Brain and nerves, — Air-pipes and Breathing-
holes, — Heart and Blood, 4.— Insects are produced from Eggs, — Meta-
morphoses, — Examples of Complete Transformation, 5.— Partial Trans-
formation, 6. — Larva or Infant State, Pupa or Intermediate State, Adult,
or Winged State, 7.— Head, Eyes, Antenne, and Mouth, 8. — Thorax or
Chest, Wings and Legs,— Abdomen or Hind-body, 9.— Piercer, and
Sting, — Number of Insects compared with Plants, — Classification, Or-
ders, Coleoptera, 10. — Orthoptera, Hemiptera, 11.— Neuroptera, Lepi-
doptera, 12.— Hymenoptera, 13.— Diptera, 14.— Other Orders and
Groups, 17. — Remarks on Scientific Names, 19.
COLEOPTERA.
Beetles, —Scarabeians, 21.— Ground-Beetles, Tree-Beetles, 22.— Cock-
chafers or May-Beetles, 23. — Flower-Beetles, 35. — Stag-Beetles, 38. —
Buprestians, or Saw-horned Borers, 40. — Spring-Beetles, 46. — Timber-
Beetles, 51.— Weevils, 53. — Cylindrical Bark-Beetles, 71. — Capricorn-
Beetles, or Long-horned Borers, 77.— Leaf-Beetles, 94. — Criocerians, 95
— Leaf-mining Beetles, 97. — Tortoise-Beetles, 98. — Chrysomelians, 99.
— Cantharides, 109.
ORTHOPTERA.
Structure and Transformations, 114. — Earwigs, 116. — Cockroaches, 118.
— Mantes, or Soothsayers, 118.— Walking-leaves, Spectres, — Crick-
ets, 119. — Mole-Cricket, 120.— Field-Crickets, 121.— Climbing-Crick-
et, 123. — Cucumber Skippers, 125.— Grasshoppers, 125. — Awl-Bearer,
or wingless Cricket, 126. — Katy-did, 127. — Locusts, or flying Grass-
hoppers, 1382.
HEMIPTERA.
Bugs, 156.— Squash-Bug, 158. — Plant-Bugs, 160. — Harvest-Flies, 164. —
Cicadas, 165.— Tree-Hoppers, 177. — Leaf-Hoppers, 182. — Vine-Hop-
per, 183. — Bean-Hopper, 185.— A phidians, 186.— Thrips, Plant-Lice, 187.
— American Blight, 193.— Enemies of Plant-Lice, 196. — Bark-Lice, 198.
viil CONTENTS.
LEPIDOPTERA.
Caterpillars, 206.— Butterflies, 209. — Skippers, 222. — Hawk-Moths, 225.
£gerians, or Boring Caterpillars, 230.—Glaucopidians, 236.— Moths, 237.
— Spinners, 239. — Lithosians, 240. — Tiger-Moths, and Ermine-Moths,
242, — Tussock-Moths, 258. — Lackey-Moths, 265.— Lappet-Moths, 272.
— Saturnians, 276.— Ceratocampians, 287. — Carpenter-Moths, 295. —
—Psychians, 297.— Notodontians, 301.— Owl-Moths, 315.— Spindle-
Worms, 318. — Cut-Worms, 321. — Geometers or Span-Worms, 330. —
Canker-Worms, 332.— Delta-Moths, 343. — Leaf Rollers, 346. — Bud-
Moths, 348.— Fruit-Moths, 351. — Tinew, 355.— Bee-Moths, 357.—
Clothes-Moths, 360. — Grain- Moths, 363. — Feather-winged Moths, 368.
HYMENOPTERA.
Stingers and Piercers, 369.— Habits of some of the Hymenopterous In-
sects, 370. — Saw-Flies, 371. — False Caterpillars and Slugs, 373. — Elm
Saw-F ly, 374.— Fir Saw-Fly, 375. — Vine Saw-F ly, 378. — Rose-bush
Slug, 380. —Pear-tree Slug, 382. — Horn-tailed Wood-Wasps, 386.—
Four-winged Gall-Flies, 395.
DIPTERA.
Gnats and Flies, 401.— Maggots, and their Transformations, 402. — Club-
footed Gnat, 404. — Snow-Gnat, 404, — Black Fly, Midges, 405. — Horse-
Flies, 405.— Bee-Flies, 406.— Asilians, 407.— Soldier-Flies, 408. —
Syrphians, 409. — Conopians, 410. — Parasitical Flies, Viviparous Flesh-
Flies, 411.— Piercing Stable-Flies, Meat-Flies, and House-Flies, 412,
— Flower-Flies, 414. — Two-winged Gall-Flies, and Fruit-Flies, 416. —
Oscinians, 417.— Bot-Flies, 418. — Bird-Flies, and Spider-Flies, 420. —
Flea, 421. — Gall-Gnats, 421. — Hessian Fly, 422. — Barley-Fly, 433. —
Wheat-Fly, 437.— Wheat-Thrips, 444. — Wheat-Worm, Grain-Worm,
or Wheat-Caterpillar, 445.
INDEX) (3). - 6 Sil «oun yd
CORRECTIONS.
Page 18, line 16, for Phryanead@ read Phryganeade
(Cera Med, “© pailstul ‘© pailfuls
« AB @« 4, ¢ ostates « state
6 92, SS 29) ** ~Democerus «¢ Desmocerus
66. ade 88 HS, Ke its “their
goa) fe as Fs of: “and
“ 240, 11, “ Glaucopsis ‘¢ Glaucopis
SN PLIS) eal Niortai IS ree
"04 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
one family called MeLoLonTHADA, or Melolonthians. The fol-
lowing are the general characters of these insects. ‘The body is
oblong oval, convex, and generally of a brownish color ; the
antenne are nine or more commonly ten jointed, the knob 1s
much longer in the males than in the females, and consists gener-
ally of three leaf-like pieces, sometimes of a greater number,
which open and shut like the leaves of a book ; the visor is short
and wide ; the upper jaws are furnished at base on the inner side
with an oval space, crossed by ridges, like a millstone, for grind-
ing ; the thorax is transversely square, or nearly so; the wing-
cases do not cover the whole of the body, the hinder extremity of
which is exposed ; the legs are rather long, the first pair armed
externally with two or three teeth ; and the claws are notched be-
neath, or are split at the end like the nib ofa pen. ‘The powerful
and horny jaws are admirably fitted for cutting and grinding the
leaves of plants, upon which these beetles subsist ; their notched
or double claws support them securely on the foliage ; and their
strong and jagged fore-legs, being formed for digging in the
ground, point out the place of their transformations.
The general habits and transformations of the common cock-
chafer of Europe have been carefully observed, and will serve to
exemplify those of the other insects of this family, which, as far
as they are known, seem to be nearly the same. This insect de-
vours the leaves of trees and shrubs. Its duration in the perfect
state is very short, each individual living only about a week, and
the species entirely disappearing in the course of a month. After
the sexes have paired, the males perish, and the females enter the
earth to the depth of six inches or more, making their way by
means of the strong teeth which arm the fore-legs ; here they de-
posit their eggs, amounting, according to some writers, to nearly
one hundred, or, as others assert, to two hundred from each
female, which are abandoned by the parent, who generally as-
cends again to the surface, and perishes in a short time.
From the eggs are hatched, in the space of fourteen days, little
whitish grubs, each provided with six legs near the head, and a
mouth furnished with strong jaws. When in a state of rest, these
grubs usually curl themselves in the shape of a crescent. They
subsist on the tender roots of various plants, committing ravages
COLEOPTERA. 25
among these vegetable substances, on some occasions of the most
deplorable kind, so as totally to disappoint the best founded
hopes of the husbandman. During the summer they live under
the thin coat of vegetable mould near the surface, but, as winter
approaches, they descend below the reach of frost, and kemain
torpid until the succeeding spring, at which time they change
their skins, and reascend to the surface for food. At the close of
their third summer, (or, as some say, of the fourth or fifth,) they
cease eating, and penetrate about two feet deep into the earth ;
there, by its motions from side to side, each grub forms an oval
cavity, which is lined by some glutinous substance thrown from its
mouth. In this cavity it is changed to a pupa by casting off its
skin. In this state, the legs, antenne, and wing-cases of the
future beetle are visible through the transparent skin which en-
velopes them, but appear of a yellowish white color; and thus it
remains until the month of February, when the thin film which
encloses the body is rent, and three months afterwards the per-
fected beetle digs its way to the surface, from which it finally
emerges during the night. According to Kirby and Spence, the
grubs of the cock-chafer sometimes destroy whole acres of grass
by feeding on its roots. They undermine the richest meadows,
and so loosen the turf that it will roll up as if cut by a turfing
spade. 'l'hey do not confine themselves to grass, but eat the roots
of wheat, of other grains, and also those of young trees. About
seventy years ago, a farmer near Norwich, in England, suffered
much by them, and, with his man, gathered eighty bushels of the
beetles. In the year 1785 many provinces in France were so
ravaged by them, that a premium was offered by government for
the best mode of destroying them. ‘The Society of Arts in
London, during many years, held forth a premium for the best
account of this insect, and the means of checking its ravages, but
without having produced one successful claimant.
In their winged state, these beetles, with several other species,
act as conspicuous a part in injuring the trees, as the grubs do in
destroying the herbage. During the month of May they come forth
from the ground, whence they have received the name of May-
bugs, or May-beetles. They pass the greater part of the day
upon trees, clinging to the under-sides of the leaves, in a state of
4
4 A a ae
26 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
repose. As soon as evening approaches, they begin to buzz about
among the branches, and continue on the wing till towards
midnight. In their droning flight, they move very irregu-
larly, darting hither and thither with an uncertain aim, hitting
against objects in their way with a force that often causes them to
fall to the ground. ‘They frequently enter houses in the night,
apparently attracted, as well as dazzled and bewildered, by the
lights. Their vagaries, in which, without having the power to
harm, they seem to threaten an attack, have caused them to be
called dors, that is darers ; while their seeming blindness and
stupidity have become proverbial, in the expressions, ‘‘ blind as a
beetle,”’ and ‘‘ beetle-headed”’. Besides the leaves of fruit-trees,
they devour those of various forest-trees and shrubs, with an
avidity not much less than that of the locust, so that, in certain
seasons, and in particular districts, they become an oppressive
scourge, and the source of much misery to the inhabitants.
Mouffet relates that, in the year 1574, such a number of them fell
into the river Severn, as to stop the wheels of the water-mills ;
and, in the Philosophical Transactions, it is stated, that in the
year 1688 they filled the hedges and trees of Galway, in such in-
finite numbers as to cling to each other like bees when swarming ;
and, when on the wing, darkened the air, annoyed travellers, and
produted a sound like distant drums. In a short time, the leaves
of all the trees, for some miles round, were so totally consumed
by them, that at midsummer the country wore the aspect of the
depth of winter.
Another chafer, Anomala vitis Ef. is sometimes exceedingly
injurious to the vine. It prevails in certain provinces of France,
where it strips the vines of their leaves, and also devours those of
the willow, poplar, and fruit-trees.
The animals and birds appointed to check the ravages of these
insects, are, according to Latreille, the badger, weasel, martin,
bats, rats, the common dung-hill fowl, and the goat-sucker or
night-hawk. ‘T'o this list may be added the common crow, which
devours not only the perfect insects, but their larve, for which
purpose it is often observed to follow the plough. In ‘ Ander-
son’sRecreations,”’ it is stated that ‘‘a cautious observer, having
found a nest of five young jays, remarked, that each of these birds,
Coo eee eee
COLEOPTERA. 27
while yet very young, consumed at least fifteen of these full-sized
grubs in one day, and of course would require many more of a
smaller size. Say that, on an average of sizes, they consumed
twenty a-piece, these for the five make one hundred. Each of the
parents consume say “fifty ; so that the pair and family devour two
hundred every day. ‘This, in three months, amounts to twenty
thousand in one season. But as the grub continues in that state
four seasons, this single pair, with their family alone, without reck-
oning their descendants after the first year, would destroy eighty
thousand grubs. Let us suppose that the half, namely forty thous-
and, are females, and it is known that they usually lay about two
hundred eggs each ; it will appear, that no less than eight millions
have been destroyed, or prevented from being hatched, by the la-
bors of a single family of jays. It is by reasoning in this way, that we
learn to know of what importance it is to attend to the economy
of nature, and to be cautious how we derange it by our short-
sighted and futile operations.”” Our own country abounds with
insect-eating beasts and birds, and without doubt the more than
abun ‘ant Melolonthe form a portion of their nourishment.
In the year 1817, the Fabrician genus MELOLONTHA contained
three hundred and f.ve known species, two hundred and twenty-
six of which still retained that name, and seventy-nine were sep-
arated into five distinct genera. A great number of new species
have since | een added to this list, which it has become necessary
still further to subdivide. Ina prize essay on the noxious insects
of this genus, written by me in 1826, and published in the tenth
volume of the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal,
several new genera were proposed, and the principal insects they
were designed to include were pointed out. Several years after-
wards it became known to me, that similar genera, founded on a
consideration of the same insects, had been made by European
naturalists, some of whom published the result of their investiga-
tions before, and others after mine had appeared. Those of my
names, therefore, that had been anticipated in point of time, must
be dropped ; the others, I have thought proper to retain in the
present essay.
We have several Melolonthians whose injuries in the perfect
and grub state approach to those of the European cock-chafer.
le) | ec
28 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Phyllophaga* quercina of Knoch, the May-beetle, as it is gener-
ally called here, is our common species. It is of a chestnut-
brown color, smooth, but finely punctured, that is, covered with
little impressed dots, as if pricked with the point of a needle ;
each wing-case has two or three slightly elevated longitudinal lines ;
the breast is clothed with yellowish down. The knob of its
antenne contains only three leaf-like joints. Its average length is
nine tenths of an inch. In its perfect state it feeds on the leaves
of trees, particularly on those of the cherry-tree. It flies with a
humming noise in the night, from the middle of May to the end of
June, and frequently enters houses, attracted by the light. In the
course of the spring, these beetles are often thrown from the earth
by the spade and plough, in various states of maturity, some being
soft and nearly white, their superabundant juices not having evap-
orated, while others exhibit the true color and texture of the per-
fect insect. ‘The grubs devour the roots of grass and of other
plants, and in many places the turf may be turned up like a carpet
in consequence of the destruction of the roots. ‘The gruby is a
white worm with a brownish head, and, when fully grown, is
nearly as thick as the little finger. It is eaten greedily by crows
and fowls. ‘The beetles are devoured by the skunk, whose bene-
ficial foraging is detected in our gardens by its abundant excrement
filled with the wing-cases of these insects. A writer in the
‘¢New York Evening Post” says, that the beetles, which fre-
quently commit serious ravages on fruit-trees, may be effectually
exterminated by shaking them from the trees every evening. In
this way two pailsful of beetles were collected on the first experi-
ment ; the number caught regularly decreased until the fifth even-
ing, when only two beetles were to be found. The best time,
however, for shaking trees on which the May-beetles are lodged,
is in the morning, when the insects do not attempt to fly. They
are most easily collected in a cloth spread under the trees to
* A genus proposed by me in 1826. It signifies leaf-eater. Dejean subsequently
called this genus 4Ancylonycha.
t There is a grub, somewhat resembling this, which is frequently found under
old manure heaps, and is commonly called muck-worm. It differs, however, in
some respects, from that of the May-beetle, or dor-bug, and is transformed to a
dung-beetle called Scarabeus relictus by Mr. Say.
ape tar
COLEOPTERA. 29
receive them when they fall, after which, they should be thrown
into boiling water, to kill them, and may then be given as food to
swine.
There is an undescribed kind of Phyllophaga, or leaf-eater,
called, in my Catalogue of the Insects of Massachusetts,* fraterna,
because it is nearly akin to the quercina, in general appearance.
It differs from the latter, however, in being smaller, and more
slender, the punctures on its thorax and wing-covers are not so
distinct, and the three elevated lines on the latter are hardly visi-
ble. It measures thirteen twentieths of an inch in length. This
beetle may be seen in the latter part of June and the beginning of
July. Its habits are similar to those of the more abundant May-
beetle or dor-bug.
Another common Phyllophaga has been described by Knoch
and Say, under the name of hirvicula, meaning a little hairy. It
is of a bay-brown color, the punctures on the thorax are larger
and more distinct than in the quercina, and on each wing-cover
are three longitudinal rows of short yellowish hairs. It measures
about seven tenths of an inch in length. Its time of appearance is
in June and July.
In some parts of Massachusetts the Phyllophaga Georgicana of
Gyllenhal, or Georgian leaf-eater, takes the place of the quercina.
It is extremely common, during May and June, in Cambridge,
where the other species is rarely seen. It is of a bay-brown
color, entirely covered on the upper side with very short yellow-
ish gray hairs, and measures seven tenths of an inch, or more, in
length.
Phyllophaga pilosicolits of Knoch, or the hairy necked leaf-
eater, is a small chafer, of an ochre yellow color, with a very
hairy thorax. It is often thrown out of the ground by the spade,
early in the spring ; but it does not voluntarily come forth till the
middle of May. It measures half an inch in length.
* In order to save unnecessary repetitions, it may be well to state, that the Cata-
logue, above named, to which frequent reference will be made in the course of this
essay, was drawn up by me, and was published in Professor Hitchcock’s Report
on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts, and that two
editions of it appeared with the Report, the first in 1833, and the second, with
numerous additions, in 1835.
30 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Hentz’s Melolontha* variolosa, or scarred Melolontha, differs
essentially from the foregoing beetles in the structure of its an-
tenne, tie knob of which consists of seven narrow strap-shaped
ochre-yellow leaves, which are excessively long in the males.
This fine insect is of a light-brown color, with irregular whitish
blotches, like scars, on the thorax and wing-covers. It measures
nine tenths of an inch, or more, in length. It occurs abundantly,
in the month of July, at Martha’s Vineyard, and in some other
places near the coast ; but is rare in other parts of Massachusetts.
The foregoing Melolonthians are found in gardens, nurseries,
and orc ards, where they are more or less injurious to the fruit-
trees, in proportion to their numbers in different seasons. ‘They
also devour the leaves of various forest-trees, such as the elm,
maple, and oak.
Omaloplia vespertina of Gyllenhal, and serzcea of Illiger, attack
the leaves of the sweetbriar, or sweet-leaved rose, on which they
may be found in profusion in the evening, about the last of June.
They somewhat resemble the May-beetles in form, but are pro-
portionally shorter and thicker, and much smaller in size. The
first.of them, the vespertine or evening Omaloplia, is bay-brown ;
the wing-covers are marked with many longitudinal shallow fur-
rows, which, with the thorax, are thickly punctured. This beetle
varies in length from three to four tenths of an inch. Onmaloplia
* In my prize essay, before alluded to, I proposed to restrict the genus Melolon-
tha to those species that have more than three leaves in the knob of the antenne,
asin the variolosa,and the European Scarabeus Melolentha of Linneus. This has
actually been done by Latreille, but probably without being aware of my sugges-
tion. It would have been better, however, to have given this genus some other
name, instead of Melolontha, because this was first used by Linneus as a specific
name, which, according tothe well known rule of priority, cannot be discontinued
in its original application, without manifest injustice to the first describer. To
continue the comparison made, on another page, between the names used in nat-
ural history and those of persons, — insects, like ladies, may and do, frequently
and repeatedly, change their generical or family names; but there is no good or
commendable authority for depriving either of them of their specific or baptismal
names. I therefore propose to restore to the Melolontha of the ancients and of
Linneus, its original distinctive or specific appellation, by calling it Polyphylla
Melolontha, literally the many-leaved Melolontha, in allusion to the unusual num-
ber of leaves in the knob of the antenne. Mr. Hentz’s species will then become
Polyphylla variolosa.
ro... *
COLEOPTERA. 31
sericea, the silky Omaloplia, closely resembles the preceding in
every thing but its color, which is a very deep chestnut-brown,
iridescent or changeable like satin, and reflecting the colors of the
rainbow.
All these Melolonthians are nocturnal insects, never appearing,
except by accident, in the day, during which they remain under
shelter of the foliage of trees and shrubs, or concealed in the
grass. Others are truly day-fliers, committing their ravages by
the light of the sun, and are consequently exposed to observa-
tion.
One of our diurnal Melolonthians is supposed by many natural-
ists to be the Anomala varians of Fabricius ; and it agrees very
well with this writer’s description of the ducicola ; but Professor
Germar thinks it to be an undescribed species, and proposes to
name it celebs. It resembles the vine-chafer of Europe in its
habits, and is found in the months of June and July on the culti-
vated and wild grape-vines, the leaves of which it devours. Dur-
ing the same period, these chafers may be seen in still greater
numbers on various kinds of sumach, which they often completely
despoil of their leaves. They are of a broad oval shape, and very
variable in color. ‘The head and thorax of the male are greenish-
black, margined with dull ochre or tile-red, and thickly punc-
tured ; the wing-covers are clay-yellow, irregularly furrowed, and
punctured in the furrows ; the legs are pale red, brown, or black.
The thorax of the female is clay-yellow, or tile-red, sometimes
with two oblique blackish spots on the top, and sometimes almost
entirely black; the wing-covers resemble those of the male; the
legs are clay-yellow, or light red. ‘The males are sometimes en-
tirely black, and this variety seems to be the beetle called atrata,
by Fabricius. ‘The males measure nearly, and the females rather
more than seven twentieths of an inch in length. In the year
1825, these insects appeared on the grape-vines in a garden in
this vicinity ; they have since established themselves on the spot,
and have so much multiplied in subsequent years as to prove ex-
ceedingly hurtful to the vines. In many other gardens they have
also appeared, having probably found the leaves of the cultivated
grape-vine more to their taste than their natural food. Should
these beetles increase in numbers, they will be found as difficult
32 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
to check and extirpate as the destructive vine-chafers of Eu-
rope.
The rose-chafer, or rose-bug, as it is more commonly and
incorrectly called, is also a diurnal insect. It is the Melolontha
subspinosa of Fabricius, by whom it was first described, and be-
longs to the modern genus* Macrodactylus of Latreille. Common
as this insect is in the vicinity of Boston, it is, or was a few years
ago, unknown in the northern and western parts of Massachusetts,
in New Hampshire, and in Maine. It may, therefore, be well to
give a brief description of it. ‘This beetle measures seven twen-
tieths of an inch in length. Its body is slender, tapers before and
behind, and is entirely covered with very short and close ashen-
yellow down; the thorax is long and narrow, angularly widened
in the middle of each side, which suggested the name subspinosa,
or somewhat spined ; the legs are slender, and of a pale red color;
the joints of the feet are tipped with black, and are very long,
which caused Latreille to call the genus Macrodactylus, that is
long toe, or long foot. The natural history of the rose-chafer,
one of the greatest scourges with which our gardens and nurseries
have been afflicted, was for a long time involved in mystery, but
is at last fully cleared up.t The prevalence of this insect on the
rose, and its annual appearance coinciding with the blossoming of
that flower, have gained for it the popular name by which it is
here known. For some time after they were first noticed, rose-
bugs appeared to be confined to their favorite, the blossoms of
the rose ; but within thirty years they have prodigiously increased
in number, have attacked at random various kinds of plants in
swarms, and have become notorious for their extensive and de-
plorable ravages. ‘The grape-vine in particular, the cherry,
plum, and apple trees, have annually suffered by their depreda-
tions ; many other fruit-trees and shrubs, garden vegetables and
* Stenothorax, in my prize essay.
1 See my essay in the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal,
Vol. X. p. 8; reprinted in the New England Farmer, Vol. VI. p. 18, &c.; my
Discourse before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, p. 31, 8vo. Cambridge,
1832. Dr. Greene’s communication on this insect in the New England Farmer,
Vol. VI. pp. 41, 49, &c., and my Report on Insects injurious to Vegetation, in
Massachusetts, House Document, No, 72, April, 1838, p. 70.
COLEOPTERA. 33
corn, and even the trees of the forest and the grass of the fields,
have been laid under contribution by these indiscriminate feeders,
by whom leaves, flowers, and fruits are alike consumed. The
unexpected arrival of these insects in swarms, at their first com-
ing, and their sudden disappearance, at the close of their career,
are remarkable facts in their history. They come forth from the
ground during the second week in June, or about the time of the
blossoming of the damask rose, and remain from thirty to forty
days. At the end of this period the males become exhausted,
fall to the ground, and perish, while the females enter the earth,
lay their eggs, return to the surface, and, after lingering a few
days, die also. The eggs laid by each female are about thirty in
number, and are deposited from one to four inches beneath the
surface of the soil ; they are nearly globular, whitish, and about
one thirtieth of an inch in diameter, and are hatched twenty days
after they are laid. The young larve begin to feed on such ten-
der roots as are within their reach. Like other grubs of the
Scarabeians, when not eating, they lie upon the side, with the body
curved so that the head and tail are nearly in contact ; they move
with difficulty on a level surface, and are continually falling over on
one side or the other. ‘They attain their full size in the autumn,
being then nearly three quarters of an inch long, and about an eighth
of an inch in diameter. ‘They are of a yellowish white color, with
a tinge of blue towards the hinder extremity, which is thick and ob-
tuse or rounded ; a few short hairs are scattered on the surface of
the body ; there are six short legs, namely a pair to each of the first
three rings behind the head ; and the latter is covered with a horny
shell of a pale rust color. In October they des@€nd below the
reach of frost, and pass the winter in a torpid state. In the
spring they approach towards the surface, and each one forms
for itself a little cell of an oval shape, by turning round a great
many times, so as to compress the earth and render the inside of
the cavity hard and smooth. Within this cell the grub is trans-
formed to a pupa, during the month of May, by casting off its
skin, which is pushed downwards in folds from the head to the
tail. The pupa has somewhat the form of the perfected beetle ;
but it is of a yellowish white color, and its short stump-like wings,
its antenne, and its legs are folded upon the breast, and its whole
34 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
body is enclosed ina thin film, that wraps each part separately..
During the month of June this filmy skin is rent, the included
beetle withdraws from it its body and its limbs, bursts open its
earthen cell, and digs its way to the surface of the ground. Thus
the various changes, from the egg to the full development of the
perfected beetle, are completed within the space of one year.
Such being the metamorphoses and habits of these insects, it is
evident that we cannot attack them in the egg, the grub, or the
pupa state ; the enemy, in these stages, is beyond our reach, and
is subject to the control only of the natural but unknown means
appointed by the Author of Nature to keep the insect tribes in
check. When they have issued from their subterranean retreats,
and have congregated upon our vines, trees, and other vegetable
productions, in the complete enjoyment of their propensities, we
must unite our efforts to seize and crush the invaders. ‘They
must indeed be crushed, scalded, or burned, to deprive them of
life, for they are not affected by any of the applications usually
found destructive to other insects. Experience has proved the
utility of gathering them by hand, or of shaking them or brushing
them from the plants into tin vessels containing a little water.
They should be collected daily during the period of their visita-
tion, and should be committed to the flames, or killed by scalding
water. The late John Lowell, Esq. states,* that in 1823, he dis-
covered, on a solitary apple-tree, the rose-bugs ‘‘ in vast numbers,
such as could not be described, and would not be believed if they
were described, or, at least, none but an ocular witness could con-
ceive of their numbers. Destruction by hand was out of the ques-
tion’”’, inthis @ase. He put sheets under the tree, and shook them
down, and burned them. Dr. Green, of Mansfield, whose investiga-
tions have thrown much light on the history of this insect, proposes
protecting plants with millinet, and says that in this way only did
he succeed in securing his grape-vines from depredation. His
remarks also show the utility of gathering them. ‘‘ Eighty-six of
these spoilers”, says he, ‘‘ were known to infest a single rose-
bud, and were crushed with one grasp of the hand.” Suppose,
as was probably the case, that one half of them were females ; by
* Massachusetts Agricultural Repository, Vol. IX. p. 145.
COLEOPTERA. 35
this destruction, eight hundred eggs, at least, were prevented from
becoming matured. During the time of their prevalence, rose-
bugs are sometimes found in immense numbers on the flowers of
the common white-weed, or ox-eye daisy, (Chrysanthemum leu-
canthemum), a worthless plant, which has come to us from Europe,
and has been suffered to overrun our pastures, and encroach on
our mowing lands. In certain cases it may become expedient
rapidly to mow down the infested white-weed in dry pastures, and
consume it, with the sluggish rose-bugs, on the spot.
Our insect-eating birds undoubtedly devour many of these
insects, and deserve to be cherished and protected for their ser-
vices. Rose-bugs are also eaten greedily by domesticated fowls ;
and when they become exhausted and fall to the ground, or when
they are about to lay their eggs, they are destroyed by moles,
insects, and other animals, which lie in wait to seize them. Dr.
Green informs us, that a species of dragon-fly, or devil’s needle
devours them. He also says that an insect which he calls the
enemy of the cut-worm, probably the larva of a Carabus or pre-
daceous ground-beetle, preys on the grubs of the common dor-
bug. In France the golden ground-beetle (Carabus auratus)
devours the female dor or chafer at the moment when she is
about to deposit her eggs. Ihave taken one specimen of this
fine ground-beetle in Massachusetts, and we have several other
kinds, equally predaceous, which probably contribute to check
the increase of our native Melolonthians.
There are several more tree-beetles in Massachusetts, which
are injurious to vegetation ; but a mere description of them, with-
out an account of their previous history, which 1s not yet fully
known, would be of little use to the cultivator of the soil.
Very few of the flower-beetles are decidedly injurious to vege-
tation. Some of them are said to eat leaves ; but the greater
number live on the pollen and the honey of flowers, or upon the
sap that oozes from the wounds of plants. In the infant or grub
state most of them eat only the crumbled substance of decayed
roots and stumps ; a few live in the wounds of trees, and by their
depredations prevent them from healing, and accelerate the decay
of the trunk. ‘The flower-beetles belong chiefly to a group called
CrToniAD®, or Cetonians. ‘They are easily distinguished from
36 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
the other Scarabeians by their lower jaws, which are gener-
ally soft on the inside, and are often provided with a flat brush of
hairs, that serves to collect the pollen and juices on which they
subsist. Their upper jaws have no grinding plate on the inside.
Their antenne consist of ten joints, the last three of which form a
three-leaved oval knob. The head is often square, with a large
and wide visor, overhanging and entirely concealing the upper-
lip. The thorax is either rounded, somewhat square, or trian-
gular. The wing-cases do not cover the end of the body. The
fore-legs are deeply notched on the outer edge ; and the claws
are equal and entire. ‘These beetles are generally of an oblong
oval form, somewhat flattened above, and often brilliantly colored
and highly polished, sometimes also covered with hairs. Most
of the bright-colored kinds are day-fliers ; those of dark and plain
tints are generally nocturnal beetles. Some of them are of im-
mense size, and have been styled the princes of the beetle tribes ;
such are the Incas of South America, and the Goliah beetle
(Hegemon Goliatus) of Guinea, the latter being more than four
inches long, two inches broad, and thick and heavy in propor-
tion.
Two American Cetonians must suffice as examples in this
group. The first is the Indian Cetonia, Cetonta Inda*, one of our
earliest visitors in the spring, making its appearance towards the
end of April or the beginning of May, when it may sometimes be
seen in considerable numbers around the borders of woods, and in
dry open fields, flying just above the grass with a loud humming
sound, like a “Sata for which perhaps it might at first sight
be mistaken. “Like other insects of the same genus, it has a
broad body, very obtuse behind, with a triangular thorax, and a
little wedge-shaped piece on each side between the hinder angles
of the thorax and the shoulders of the wing-covers ; the latter,
taken together, form an oblong square, but are somewhat notched
or widely scalloped on the middle of the outer edges. The head
and thorax of this beetle are dark copper- brown, or almost black,
and thickly covered with short greenish yellow hairs ; the wing-
eases are light yellowish brown, but changeable, with pearly and
* Scarabeus Indus of Linneus, Cetonia barbata of Say.
COLEOPTERA. 37
metallic tints, and spattered with numerous irregular black spots ;
the under-side of the body, which is very hairy, is of a black
color, with the edges of the rings and the legs dull red. It meas-
ures about six tenths of an inch in length. During the summer
months the Indian Cetonia is not seen; but about the middle of
September a new brood comes forth, the beetles appearing fresh
and bright, as though they had just completed their last transfor-
mation. At this time they may be found on the flowers of the
golden-rod, eating the pollen, and also in great numbers on corn-
stalks, and on the trunks of the locust-tree, feeding upon the
sweet sap of these plants. On the approach of cold weather they
disappear, but I have not been able to ascertain what becomes of
them at this time, and only conjecture that they get into some
warm and sheltered spot, where they pass the winter in a torpid
state, and in the spring issue from their. retreats, and finish their
career by depositing their eggs for another brood. ‘Those that
are seen in the spring want the freshness of the autumnal beetles, «+
a circumstance that favors my conjecture. ‘Their hovering over __
and occasionally dropping upon the surface of the ground is
probably for the purpose of selecting a suitable place to enter the
earth and lay their eggs. Hence I suppose that their larve or
grubs may live on the roots of herbaceous plants.
The other Cetonian beetle to be described is the Osmoderma
scaber*, or rough Osmoderma. It is a large insect, with a broad
oval and flattened body ; the thorax is nearly round, but wider
than long ; there are no wedge-shaped pieces between the cor-
ners of the thorax, and the shoulders of the wing-cases, and the
outer edges of the latter are entire. It is of a purplish-black
color, with a coppery lustre ; the head is punctured, concave or
hollowed on the top, with the edge of the broad visor turned up
in the males, nearly flat, and with the edge of the visor not raised
in the females ; the wing-cases are so thickly and deeply and
irregularly punctured as to appear almost as rough as shagreen ;
the under-side of the body is smooth and without hairs ; and the
legs are short and stout. In addition to the differences between
the sexes above described, it may be mentioned that the females
* Trichius scaber, Palisot de Beauvois ; Gymnodus scaber, Kirby.
38 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
are generally much larger than the males, and often want the cop-
pery polish of the latter. They measure from eight tenths of an
inch to one inch and one tenth in length. ‘They are nocturnal
insects, and conceal themselves during the day in the crevices
and hollows of trees, where they feed upon the sap that flows
from the bark. They have the odor of Russia leather, and give
this out so powerfully, that their presence can be detected, by the
scent alone, at the distance of two or three yards from the place
of their retreat. This strong smell suggested the name Osmoder-
ma, that is scented skin, given to these beetles by the French
naturalists. They seem particularly fond of the juices of cherry
and apple trees; in the hollows of which I have often discovered
them. Their larve live in the hollows of these same trees, feed-
ing upon the diseased wood, and causing it more rapidly to decay.
‘They are whitish fleshy grubs, with a reddish hard-shelled head,
and closely resemble the grubs of the common dor-beetle. In
~~ the autumn each one makes an oval cell or pod, of fragments of
_ wood, strongly cemented with a kind of glue ; it goes through its
transformation within this cell, and comes forth in the beetle form
in the month of July.
We have another scented beetle, equal in size to the preced-
ing, of a deep mahogany-brown color, perfectly smooth, and
highly polished, and the male has a deep pit before the middle of
the thorax. ‘T'his species of Osmoderma is called eremicola*, a
name that cannot be rendered literally into English by any single
word ; it signifies wilderness-inhabitant, for which might be sub-
stituted hermit. I believe that this insect lives in forest-trees,
but the larva is unknown to me.
The family Lucanip#, or Lucanians, so named from the Lin-
nean genus Lucanvs, must be placed next to the Scarabzians in a
natural arrangement. ‘T'his family includes the insects called stag-
beetles, horn-bugs, and flying-bulls, names that they have obtained
from the great size and peculiar form of their upper jaws, which
are sometimes curved like the horns of cattle, and sometimes
branched like the antlers of a stag. In these beetles the body is
hard, oblong, rounded behind, and slightly convex ; the head is
* Cetonia eremicola of Knoch.
COLEOPTERA. 39
large and broad, especially in the males ; the thorax is short, and
as wide as the abdomen ; the antennz are rather long, elbowed or
bent in the middle, and composed of ten joints, the last three or
four of which are broad, leaf-like, and project on the inside, giv-
ing to this part of the antenne a resemblance to the end of a key ;
the upper jaws are usually much longer in the males than in the
females, but even those of the latter extend considerably beyond »
the mouth ; each of the under-jaws is provided with a long hairy
pencil or brush, which can be seen projecting beyond the mouth
between the feelers ; and the under-lip has two shorter pencils of
the same kind; the fore-legs are oftentimes longer than the
others, with the outer edge of the shanks notched into teeth ; the
feet are five-jointed, and the nails are entire and equal. These
beetles fly abroad during the night, and frequently enter houses at
that time, somewhat to the alarm of the occupants ; but they are
not venomous, and never attempt to bite without provocation.
They pass the day on the trunks of trees, and live upon the sap, ith
for procuring which the brushes of their jaws and lip seem to be
designed. ‘They are said also occasionally to bite and seize cater-
pillars and other soft-bodied insects, for the purpose of sucking
out their juices. ‘They lay their eggs in crevices of the bark of
trees, especially near the roots, where they may sometimes be
seen thus employed. ‘The larve hatched from these eggs resem-
ble the grubs of the Scarabzians in color and form, but they are
smoother, or not so much wrinkled. The grubs of the large
kinds are said to be six years in coming to their growth, living all
this time in the trunks and roots of trees, boring into the solid
wood, and reducing it to a substance resembling very coarse saw-
dust ; and the injury thus caused by them is frequently very con-
siderable. When they have arrived at their full size, they enclose
themselves in egg-shaped pods, composed of gnawed particles of
wood and bark stuck together and lined with a kind of glue ;
within these pods they are transformed to pupe, of a yellowish-
white color, having the body and all the limbs of the future beetle
encased in a whitish film, which being thrown off in due time, the
insects appear in the beetle form, burst the walls of their prison,
crawl through the passages the larve had gnawed, and come forth
on the outside of the trees.
40 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
The largest of these beetles in the New England States, was
first described by Linneus under the name of Lucanus Capreolus*,
signifying the young roe-buck ; but here it is called the horn-bug.
Its color is a deep mahogany-brown ; the surface is smooth and
polished ; the upper jaws of the male are long, curved like a sickle,
and furnished internally beyond the middle with a little tooth ;
those of the female are much shorter, and also toothed ; the head
of the male is broad and smooth, that of the other sex narrower
and rough with punctures. The body of this beetle measures
from one inch to one inch and a quarter, exclusive of the jaws.
The time of its appearance is in July and the beginning of
August. The grubs live in the trunks and roots of various kinds
of trees, but particularly in those of old apple-trees, willows, and
oaks.
Several other and smaller kinds of stag-beetles are found in
New England, but their habits are much the same as those of the
more common horn-bug.
All the foregoing beetles have, by some naturalists, been gath-
ered into a single tribe, called lamellicorn or leaf-horned beetles,
on account of the leaf-like joints wherewith the end of their an-
tenne is provided. In like manner, the beetles, next to be-de-
scribed, have been brought together into one great tribe, named
serricorn or saw-horned beetles, because the tips of the joints of
their antenne usually project more or less on the inside, some-
what like the teeth of asaw. The beetles belonging to the family
Buprestip®, or the Buprestians, have antenne of this kind.
The Buprestis of the ancients, as its name signifies in Greek, was
a poisonous insect, which, being swallowed with grass by grazing
cattle, produced a violent inflammation, and such a degree of
swelling, as to cause the cattle to burst. Linneus, however, un-
fortunately applied this name to the insects of the abovemen-
tioned family, none of which are poisonous to animals, and are
rarely, if ever, found upon the grass. It is in allusion to the ori-
ginal signification of the word Buprestis, that popular English
writers on natural history, sometimes give the name of burncow
to the harmless Buprestians ; while the French, with greater
* Lucanus Dama of Fabricius.
COLEOPTERA. 41
propriety call them richards, on account of the rich and brilliant
colors wherewith many of them are adorned. ‘The Buprestians,
then, according to the Linnean application or rather misapplica-
tion of the name, are. hard-shelled beetles, often brilliantly col-
ored, of an elliptical or oblong oval form, obtuse before, tapering
behind, and broader than thick, so that, when cut in two trans-
versely, the section is oval. ‘The head is sunk to the eyes in the
forepart of the thorax ; and the antenne are rather short, and
_ notched on one side like the teeth of a saw. The thorax is
broadest behind, and usually fits very closely to the shoulders of
the wing-covers. The legs are rather short, and the feet are
formed for standing firmly, rather than for rapid motion ; the
soles being composed of four rather wide joints, covered with lit-
tle spongy cushions beneath, and terminated by a fifth joint,
which is armed with two claws. Most beetles, as already stated,
have a little triangular piece, called the scutel, wedged between
the bases of the wing-covers and the hinder part of the thorax,
commonly of a triangular or semicircular form, and in the greater
number of coleopterous insects quite conspicuous ; in the Bupres-
tians, however, the scutel is generally very small, and sometimes
hardly perceptible. These beetles are frequently seen on the
trunks and limbs of trees basking in the sun. They walk slowly,
and, at the approach of danger, fold up their legs and antenne and
fall tothe ground. Being furnished with ample wings, their flight
is swift and attended with a whizzing noise. They keep con-
cealed in the night, and are in motion only during the day.
The larve are wood-eaters or borers. Our forests and orchards
are more or less subject to their attacks, especially after the trees
have passed their prime. ‘The transformations of these insects
take place in the trunks and limbs of trees. ‘The larve that are
known to me have a close resemblance to each other ; a general
idea of them can be formed from a description of that which
attacks the pig-nut hickory. It is of a yellowish white color, very
long, narrow, and depressed in form, but abruptly widened near
the anterior extremity. The head is brownish, small, and sunk in
the forepart of the first segment ; the upper jaws are provided with
three teeth, and are of a black color ; and the antenne are very
short. ‘The segment which receives the head is short and trans-
6
42 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
verse ; next to it is a large, oval segment, broader than long, and
depressed or flattened above and beneath. Behind this, the segs
ments are very much narrowed, and become gradually longer ;
but are still flattened, to the last, which is terminated by a round-
ed tubercle or wart. ‘There are no legs, nor any apparatus which
can serve as such, except two small warts on the under-side of
the second segment from the thorax. The motion of the grub
appears to be effected by the alternate contractions and elonga-
tions of the segments, aided, perhaps, by the tubercular extremity
of the body, and by its jaws, with which it takes hold of the sides
of its burrow, and thus draws itself along. These grubs are found
under the bark and in the solid wood of trees, and sometimes in
great numbers. ‘They frequently rest with the body bent side-
wise, so that the head and tail approach each other. This pos-
ture those found under bark usually assume. ‘They appear to
pass several years in the larva state. ‘The pupa bears a near re-
semblance to the perfect insect, but is entirely white, until near
the time of its last transformation. Its situation is immediately
under the bark, the head being directed outwards, so that when
the pupa-coat is cast off, the beetle has merely a thin covering of
bark to perforate, before making its escape from the tree. The
form of this perforation is oval, as is also a transverse section of
the burrow, that shape being best adapted to the form, motions,
and egress of the insect.
Some of these beetles are known to eat leaves and flowers, and
of this nature is probably the food of all of them. The injury
they may thus commit is not very apparent, and cannot bear any
comparison with the extensive ravages of their larve. The solid
trunks and limbs of sound and vigorous trees are often bored
through in various directions by these insects, which, during a
long-continued life, derive their only nourishment from the woody
fragments they devour. Pines and firs seem particularly subject
to their attacks, but other forest-trees do not escape, and even
fruit-trees are frequently injured by these borers. -The means
to be used for destroying them are similar to those employ-
ed against other borers, and will be explained in a subsequent
part of this essay. It may not be amiss, however, here to
remark, that wood-peckers are much more successful in discover-
COLEOPTERA. 43
ing the retreats of these borers, and in dragging out the defence-
less culprits from their burrows, than the most skilful gardener or
nurseryman. |
Until within a few years the Buprestians were all included in
three or four genera. A great number of kinds have now become
known, probably six hundred or more. In a paper on these
insects, published by me in 1829, in the beginning of the eighth
volume of the ‘‘ New England Farmer,” the characters of several
groups were pointed out; these have since been made into
genera, and many more new generical groups have been proposed
and described by European naturalists. As the insects belonging
to the greater number of these new genera do not differ essen-
tially from each other in their habits and transformations, I have
retained most of them in the old genus Buprestis, but have indi-
cated the new groups by enclosing the names given to them
within parentheses.
The largest of these beetles in this part of the United States is
the Buprestis (Chalcophora) Virginica of Drury, or Virginian
Buprestis. It is of an oblong oval form, brassy, or copper-colored ;
sometimes almost black, with hardly any metallic reflections.
The upper side of the body is roughly punctured ; the top of the
head is deeply indented ; on the thorax there are three polished
black elevated lines ; on each wing-cover are two small square
impressed spots, a long elevated smooth black line near the outer,
and another near the inner margin, with several short lines of the
same kind between them ; the under-side of the body is sparingly
covered with short whitish down. It measures from eight tenths
of an inch to one inch or more in length. ‘This beetle appears
towards the end of May, and through the month of June, on pine-
trees and on fences. In the larva state it bores into the trunks of
the different kinds of pines, and is oftentimes very injurious to
these trees.
The wild cherry-tree (Prunus serotina), and also the gar-
den cherry and peach trees suffer severely from the attacks of
borers, which are transformed to the beetles called Buprestis ( Di-
cerca) dwaricata by Mr. Say, because the wing-covers divaricate
or spread apart a little at the tips. These beetles are copper-
colored, sometimes brassy above, and thickly covered with little
44 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
punctures ; the thorax is slightly furrowed in the middle; the
wing-covers are marked with numerous fine irregular impressed
lines and small oblong square elevated black spots ; they taper
very much behind, and the long and narrow tips are blunt-pointed :
the middle of the breast is furrowed; and the males have a little
tooth on the under-side of the shanks of the intermediate legs.
They measure from seven to nine tenths of aninch. These
beetles may be found sunning themselves upon the limbs of cherry
and peach trees during the months of June, July, and August.
The borer of the hickory has already been described. It is
transformed to a beetle which appears to be the Buprestis (Di-
cerca) lurida* of Fabricius. It is of a lurid or dull brassy-color
above, bright copper beneath, and thickly punctured all over ;
there are numerous irregular impressed lines, and several narrow
elevated black spots on the wing-covers, the tip of each of which
ends with two little points. It measures from about six to eight
tenths of an inch in length. ‘This kind of Buprestis appears dur-
ing the greater part of the summer on the trunks and limbs of the
hickory.
Buprestis (Chrysobothris) dentipest of Germar, so named from
the little tooth on the under-side of the thick fore-legs, inhabits
the trunks of oak-trees. It completes its transformations and
comes out of the trees between the end of May and the first of
July. It is oblong oval and flattened, of a bronzed brownish or
purplish black color above, copper-colored beneath, and rough
like shagreen*with numerous punctures ; the thorax is not so
wide as the hinder part of the body, its hinder margin is hollowed
on both sides to receive the rounded base of each wing-cover, and
there are two smooth elevated lines on the middle ; on each wing-
cover there are three irregular smooth elevated lines, which are
divided and interrupted by large thickly punctured impressed
spots, two of which are oblique ; the tips are rounded. Length
from one half to six tenths of an inch.
Buprestis (Chrysobothris) femorata of Fabricius has the first
pair of thighs toothed beneath, like the preceding, which it resem-
* Buprestis obscura, F., found in the Middle and Southern States, closely resem-
bles the lurida.
+ Buprestis characteristica, Harris. N. E. Farmer, Vol. viii. p. 2.
COLEOPTERA. 45
bles also in its form and general appearance. It is of a greenish
black color above, with a brassy polish, which is very distinct in
the two large transverse impressed spots on each wing-cover ;
and the thorax has no smooth elevated lines on it. It measures
from four tenths to above half of an inch in length. Its time of
appearance is from the end of May to the middle of July, during
which it may often be seen, inthe middle of the day, resting upon
or flying round the trunks of white oak trees, and recently cut
timber of the same kind of wood. I have repeatedly taken it
upon and under the bark of peach-trees also. ‘The grubs or larve
bore into the trunks of these trees.
The Buprestis (Chrysobothris) fulvoguttata,* or tawny spotted
Buprestis, first described by me in the eighth volume of the ‘* New
England Farmer,” is proportionally shorter and more convex than
the two foregoing species. It is black and bronzed above, and
brassy beneath ; the thorax is covered with very fine wavy trans-
verse lines, and is sometimes copper-colored ; the wing-covers
are thickly punctured, and on each there are three small tawny
yellow spots, with sometimes an additional one by the side of the
first spot ; the tips are rounded, and the fore-legs are not toothed.
It varies very much in size, measuring from about three to four
tenths of an inch in length. I have taken this insect from the
trunks of the white pine in the month of June, and have seen
others that were found in the Oregon Territory.
Professor Hentz has described a small and broad beetle having
the form of the above, under the name of Buprestis (Chryseboth-
ris) Harrisit. It is entirely of a brilliant blue-green color, except
the sides of the thorax, and the thighs, which, in the male, are
copper-colored. It measures a little more than three tenths of an
inch in length. ‘The larve of this species inhabit the small limbs
of the white pine, and young sapling trees of the same kind, upon
which I have repeatedly captured the beetles about the middle of
June.
These seven species form but a very small part of the Bupres-
tians inhabiting Massachusetts and the other New England States.
m.:
* Mr. Kirby has redescribed and figured this insect under the name of Buprestis
(Trachypteris) Drummondi, in the fourth volume of the “ Fauna Boreali-Ameri-
cana.”
ee ee ee _
46 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
My knowledge of the habits of the others is not sufficiently per-
fect to render it worth while to insert descriptions of them here.
The concealed situation of the grubs of these beetles, in the
trunks and limbs of trees, renders it very difficult to discover and
dislodge them. When trees are found to be very much infested
by them, and are going to decay in consequence of the ravages of
these borers, it will be better to cut them down, and burn them
immediately, rather than to suffer them to stand until the borers
have completed their transformations and made their escape.
Closely related to the Buprestians are the Elaters, or spring-
beetles (ELATERID2), which are well known by the faculty they
have of throwing themselves upwards with a jerk, when laid on
their backs. On the under-side of the breast, between the bases
of the first pair of legs, there is a short blunt spine, the point of
which is usually concealed in a corresponding cavity behind it.
When the insect, by any accident, falls upon its back, its legs are
so short, and its back is so convex, that it is unable to turn itself
over. It then folds its legs close to its body, bends back the
head and thorax, and thus unsheaths its breast-spine; then by
suddenly straightening its body, the point of the spine is made to
strike with force upon the edge of the sheath, which gives it the
power of a spring, and reacts on the body of the insect, so as to
throw it perpendicularly into the air. When it again falls, if it
does not come down upon its feet, it repeats its exertions until its
object is effected. In these beetles the body is of a hard con-
sistence, and is usually rather narrow and tapering behind. The
head is sunk to the eyes in the forepart of the thorax ; the an-
tenne are of moderate length, and more or less notched on the
inside like a saw. ‘I'he thorax is as broad at base as the wing-
covers, it is usually rounded before, and the hinder angles are
sharp and prominent. ‘The scutel is of moderate size. ‘The legs
are rather short and slender, and the feet are five-jointed.
The larve or grubs of the Elaters live upon wood and roots,
and are often very injurious to vegetation. Some are confined to
old or decaying trees, others devour the roots of herbaceous
plants. In England they are called wire-worms, from their slen-
derness and uncommon hardness. They are not to be confounded
with the American wire-worm, a species of Julus, which is not a
COLEOPTERA. 47
true insect, but belongs to the class Myriapopa, a name derived
from the great number of feet with which most of the animals
included in it are furnished ; whereas the English wire-worm has
only six feet. ‘The European wire-worm is said to live, in its
feeding or larva state, not less than five years ; during the greater
part of which time it is supported by devouring the roots of
wheat, rye, oats, and grass, annually causing a large diminution of
the produce, and sometimes destroying whole crops. It is said to
be particularly injurious in gardens recently converted from pas-
ture lands. We have several grubs allied to this destructive
insect, which are quite common in land newly broken up ; but
fortunately, as yet, their ravages are inconsiderable. We may
expect these to increase in proportion as we disturb them and de-
prive them of their usual articles of food, while we continue also
to persecute and destroy their natural enemies, the birds, and
may then be obliged to resort to the ingenious method adopted by
European farmers and gardeners for alluring and capturing these
grubs. ‘This method consists in strewing sliced potatoes or tur-
nips in rows through the garden or field ; women and boys are
employed to examine the slices every morning, and collect the
insects which readily come to feed upon the bait. Some of these
destructive insects, which I have found in the ground among the
roots of plants, were long, slender, worm-like grubs, closely re-
sembling the common meal-worm ; they were nearly cylindrical,
with a hard and smooth skin, of a buff or brownish yellow color,
the head and tail only being a little darker ; each of the first three
rings was provided with a pair of short legs ; the hindmost ring
was longer than the preceding one, was pointed at the end, and
had a little pit on each side of the extremity ; beneath this part
there was a short retractile wart, or prop-leg, serving to support
the extremity of the body, and prevent it from trailing on the
ground. Other grubs of Elaters differ from the foregoing in being
proportionally broader, not cylindrical, but somewhat flattened,
with a deep notch at the extremity of the last ring, the sides of
which are beset with little teeth. Such grubs are mostly wood-
eaters, devouring the woody parts of roots, or living under the
bark and in the trunks of old trees.
After their last transformation, Elaters or spring-beetles make
48 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
their appearance upon trees and fences, and some are found on
flowers. They creep slowly, and generally fall to the ground on
being touched. They fly both by day and night. Their food, in
the beetle states, appears to be chiefly derived from flowers ; but
some devour the tender leaves of plants. Most of the insects of
this family were included in the genus Elater, which has recently
been subdivided into many smaller groups. ‘These, in the few
species which I propose to describe, will be indicated by having
their names enclosed within parentheses.
The largest of our spring-beetles is the Elater (Mlaus) ocula-
tus, of Linneus. It is of a black color; the thorax is oblong
square, and nearly one third the length of the whole body, cov-
ered above with a whitish powder, and with a large oval velvet-
black spot, like an eye, on each side of the middle, from which
the insect derives its name oculatus, or eyed ; the wing-covers are
marked with slender longitudinal impressed lines, and are sprinkled
with numerous white dots ; the under-side of the body, and the
legs, are covered with a white mealy powder. ‘This large beetle
measures from one inch and a quarter to one inch and three quar-
ters in length. It is found on trees, fences, and the sides of
buildings, in June and July. It undergoes its transformations in
the trunks of trees. I have found many of them in old apple-
trees, together with their larve, which eat the wood, and from
which I subsequently obtained the insects in the beetle state.
These larve are reddish yellow grubs, proportionally much
broader than the other kinds, and very much flattened. One of
them, which was found fully grown early in April, measured two
inches and a half in length, and nearly four tenths of an inch
across the middle of the body, and was not much narrowed at
either extremity. ‘The head was broad, brownish, and rough
above ; the upper jaws or nippers were very strong, curved, and
pointed ; the eyes were small and two in number, one being
placed at the base of each of the short antenne ; ‘the last segment
of the body was blackish, rough with little sharp-pointed warts,
with a dee semicircular notch at the end, and furnished around
the sides with little teeth, the two hindmost of which were long,
forked, and curved upwards like hooks ; under this segment was
a large retractile fleshy _prop- -foot, armed behind with little claws,
COLEOPTERA. 49
and around the sidés with short spines; the true legs were six, a
pair to each of the first three rings ; and were tipped with a single
claw. Soon after this grub was found it cast its skin and became
a pupa, and in due time the latter was transformed to a beetle.
Elater (Pyrophorus) noctilucus, the night-shining Elater, is the
celebrated cucuio or fire-beetle of the West Indies, from whence
it is frequently brought alive to this country. It resembles the
preceding insect somewhat in form, and is an inch or more in
length. It gives out a strong light from two transparent eye-like
spots on the thorax, and from the segments of its body beneath.
It eats the pulpy substance of the sugar-cane, and its grub is said
to be very injurious to this plant, by devouring its roots.
The next two common Elaters, together with several other
species, are distinguished by their claws, which resemble little
combs, being furnished with a row of fine teeth along the under-
side. ‘The thorax is short and rounded before, and the body
tapers behind. They are found under the bark of trees, where
they pass the winter, having completed their transformations in the
previous autumn. ‘Their grubs live in wood. The first of these
beetles is the ash-colored Elater, Elater (Melanotus) cinereus of
Weber. It is about six tenths of an inch long, and is dark
brown, but covered with short gray hairs, which give it an ashen
hue; the thorax is convex; and the wing-covers are marked
with lines of punctures, resembling stitches. It is found on fen-
ces, the trunks of trees, and in paths, in April and May.
Elater (Melanotus) communis of Schénherr, is, as its name im-
plies, an exceedingly common and abundant species. It closely
resembles the preceding, but is smaller, seldom exceeding half an
inch in length; it is also rather hghter colored ; the thorax is
proportionally a little longer, not so convex, and has a slender
longitudinal furrow in the middle. This Elater appears in the
same places as the cinereus in April, May, and June; and the
recently transformed beetles can also be found in the autumn un-
der the bark of trees, where they pass the winter.
Another kind of spring-beetle, which absolutely swarms in
paths and among the grass during the warmest and brightest days
in April and May, is the Elater (Ludius) appressifrons of Say.
Its specific name probably refers to the front of the head or visor
7
‘
.
50 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
being pressed downwards over the lip. The body is slender and
almost cylindrical, of a deep chestnut-brown color, rendered gray,
however, by the numerous short yellowish hairs with which it is
covered ; the thorax is of moderate length, not much narrowed
before, convex above, with very long and sharp-pointed hinder
angles, and in certain lights has a brassy hue; the wing-covers
are finely punctured, and have very slender impressed longitudinal
lines upon them; the claws are not toothed beneath. ‘This
beetle usually measures from four to five tenths of an inch in
length ; but the females frequently greatly exceed these dimen-
sions, and, being much more robust, with a more convex thorax,
were supposed by Mr. Say to belong to a different species, named
by him brevicornis, the short-horned. ‘The larve are not yet
known to me; but I have strong reasons for thinking that they
live in the ground upon the roots of the perennial grasses and
other herbaceous plants.
Although above sixty different kinds of spring-beetles are now
known to inhabit Massachusetts, I shall add to the foregoing a
description of only one more species. This is the Elater (Agri-
otes) obesus of Say. It isa short and thick beetle, as the specific
name implies ; its real color is a dark brown, but it is covered
with dirty yellowish gray hairs, which on the wing-covers are
arranged in longitudinal stripes ; the head and thorax are thickly
punctured, and the wing-covers are punctured in rows. Its
length is about three tenths of an inch. ‘This beetle closely re-
sembles one of the kinds, which, in the grub state, is called the
wire-worm in Europe, and possibly it may be the same. This
circumstance should put us on our guard against its depredations.
It is found in April, May, and June, among the roots of grass, on
the under-side of boards and rails on the ground, and sometimes
also on fences.
The utility of a knowledge of the natural history of insects in
the practical arts of life was never more strikingly and triumphantly
proved than by Linneus himself, who, while giving to natural
science its language and its laws, neglected no opportunity to
point out its economical advantages.* On one occasion this great
* See the preface toSmith’s ‘“‘ Introduction to Botany,” and Pulteney’s ‘‘ View of
the Writings of Linneus” for several examples, one of which it may not be amiss
4
a
COLEOPTERA. — 51
naturalist was consulted by the King of Sweden upon the cause of
the decay and destruction of the ship-timber in the royal dock-
yards, and, having traced it to the depredations of insects, and
ascertained the history of the depredators, by directing the timber
to be sunk under water during the season when these insects made
their appearance in (the winged state, and were busied in laying
their eggs, he effectually secured it from future attacks. The
name of these insects is Lymexylon navale, the naval timber-
destroyer. ‘They have since increased to an alarming extent in
some of the dockyards of France, and in one of them, at least,
have become very injurious, wholly in consequence of the neglect
of seasonable advice given by a naval ofticer, who was also an
entomologist, and pointed out the source of the injury, together
with the remedy to be applied.
These destructive insects belong to a family called LymExyt-
1p#, which may be rendered timber-beetles. They cannot be
far removed from the Buprestians and the spring-beetles in a
natural arrangement.* From the latter, however, the insects of
this small group are distinguished by having the head broad before,
narrowed behind, and not sunk into the thorax ; they have not the
breast-spine of the Elaters, and their legs are close together, and
not separated from each other by a broad breast-bone as in the
Baprestians ; and the hip-joints are long, and not sunk into the
breast. In the principal insects of this family the antenne are
short, and, from the third joint, flattened, widened, and saw-
toothed on the inside ; and the jaw-feelers of the males have a
singular fringed piece attached to them. ‘The body is long, nar-
to mention here. Linnzus was the first to point out the advantages to be derived
from employing the Arundo arenaria, or beach-grass, in fixing the sands of the
shore, and thereby preventing the encroachments of the sea. The Dutch have
long availed themselves of his suggestion, and its utility has been tested to some
extent in Massachusetts.
* Immediately after the Elateride are arranged the Cebrionide, by common cone
sent. Next to these I put the Lymerylide, which resemble Sandalus, one of the
Cebrionide, in their antenne. The sericeum, above described, probably not a true
Lymexylon, was included among the Cebrionide in my Catalogue. According to
my present views the Ptinide and Cleride should follow the Lymezxylide ; Eno-
plium and Tillus among the latter having some resemblance to Lymexylon, &c.,
and agreeing therewith in habits also.
52 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
row, nearly cylindrical, and not so firm and hard as in the Ela-
ters. The feet are five-jointed, long, and slender.
The larve of Lymeaylon and Hylecetus are very odd-looking,
long, and slender grubs. The head is small; the first ring is very
much hunched ; and on the top of the last ring there is a fleshy
appendage, resembling a leaf in Lymexylon, and like a straight
horn in Hylecetus. ‘They have six short legs near the head.
These grubs inhabit oak-trees, and make long cylindrical burrows
in the solid wood. ‘They are also found in some other kinds of
trees.
Only a few native insects of this family are known to me, and
these fortunately seem to be rare in New England. L shall de-
scribe only two of them. ‘The first was obtained by beating the
limbs of some forest-tree. It may be called Lymexylon sericeum,
the silky timber-beetle. It is of a chestnut-brown color above,
and covered with very short shining yellowish hairs, which give it
a silky lustre. ‘The head is bowed down beneath the forepart of
the thorax ; the eyes are very large, and almost meet above and
below ; the antenne are brownish red, widened and compressed
from the fourth to the last joimt inclusive ; the thorax is longer
than wide, rounded before, convex above, and deeply indented on
each side of the base; the wing-covers are convex, gradually
taper behind, and do not cover the tip of the abdomen ; the under-
side of the body, and the legs, are brownish red. Its length is from
four to six tenths of an inch. ‘This insect was unknown to Mr.
Say, and does not seem to have been described before.
The generical name Hylecetus, given to some insects of this
family, means a sleeper in the woods, or one who makes his bed
in the forest. We have one hitherto undescribed species, which
may be called Hylecetus Americanus, the American timber-bee-
tle. Its head, thorax, abdomen, and legs are light brownish red ;
the wing-covers, except at the base where they are also red, and
the breast, between the middle and hindmost legs, are black. The
head is not bowed down under the forepart of the thorax ; the
eyes are small and black, and on the middle of the forehead there
is one small reddish eyelet, a character unusual among beetles,
very few of which have eyelets; the angenne resemble those of
Lymexylon sericeum, but are shorter ; the thorax is nearly square,
COLEOPTERA. 53
but wider than long; and on each wing-cover there are three
slightly elevated longitudinal lines or ribs. This beetle is about
four tenths of an inch long. It appears on the wing in July.
The foregoing beetles, though differing much in form and habits,
possess one character in common; namely, their feet are five-
jointed. Those that follow have four-jointed feet. In this great
section of Coleopterous insects are arranged the Weevil tribe, the
Capricorn beetles or long-horned borers, and various kinds of leaf-
eating beetles, all of which are exceedingly injurious to vegetation.
So great is the extent of the Weevil tribe,* and so imperfectly
known is the history of a large part of our native species, that I
shall be obliged to confine myself to an account of a few only of
the most remarkable weevils, and principally those that have be-
come most known for their depredations. Mr. Kollar’s excellent
‘¢ Treatise on Insects injurious to Gardeners, Foresters, and Farm-
ers,’’ contains an account of several kinds of weevils that are un-
known in this country ; and indeed but few resembling them have
hitherto been discovered here. Should future observations lead
to the detection in our gardens and orchards of any like those
which in Europe attack the vine, the plum, the apple, the pear,
and the leaves and stems of fruit-trees, the work of Mr. Kollar
may be consulted with great advantage.
Weevils, in the winged state, are hard-shelled beetles, and are
distinguished from other insects by having the forepart of the
head prolonged into a broad muzzle or a longer and more slender
snout, in the end of which the opening of the mouth and the small
horny jaws are placed. ‘The flies and moths produced from
certain young insects, called weevils by mistake, do not possess
these characters, and their larve or young differ essentially from
those of the true weevils. The latter belong to a group called
RuyYNCHOPHORID®, literally, snout-bearers. These beetles are
mostly of small size. ‘Their antenne are usually knobbed at the
end, and are situated on the muzzle or snout, on each side of which
there is generally a short groove to receive the base of the antenne
* See page 19.
54 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
when the latter are turned backwards. ‘Their feelers are very
small, and, ‘in most kinds, are concealed within the mouth. The
abdomen is often of an oval form, and wider than the thorax.
The legs are short, not fitted for running or digging, and the soles
of the feet are short and flattened. These beetles are often very
hurtful to plants, by boring into the leaves, bark, buds, fruit, and
seeds, and feeding upon the soft substance therein contained.
They are diurnal insects, and love to come out of their retreats
and enjoy the sunshine. Some of them fly well; but others have
no wings, or only very short ones, under the wing-cases, and are
therefore unable to fly. They walk slowly, and being of a timid
nature, and without the means of defence, when alarmed they turn
back their antenne under the snout, fold up their legs, and fall
from the plants on which they live. They make use of their
snouts not only in feeding, but in boring holes, into which they
afterwards drop their eggs.
The young of these snout-beetles are mostly short fleshy grubs,
of a whitish color, and without legs. The covering of their
heads is ahard shell, and the rings of their bodies are very convex
or hunched, by both of which characters they are easily distin-
guished from the maggots of flies. ‘Their jaws are strong and
horny, and with them they gnaw those parts of plants which
serve for their food. It is in the grub-state that weevils are most
injurious to vegetation. Some of them bore into and spoil fruits,
grain, and seeds; some attack the leaves and stems of plants,
causing them to swell and become cankered; while others pene-
trate into the solid wood, interrupt the course of the sap, and oc-
casion the branch above the seat of attack to wither and die.
Most of these grubs are transformed within the vegetable substan-
ces upon which they have lived ;gsome, however, when fully
grown, go into the ground, where they are changed to pupe, and
afterwards to beetles.
In the spring of the year we often find, among seed-pease, many
that have holes in them ; and, if the pease have not been exposed
to the light and air, we see a little insect peeping out of each of
these holes, and waiting apparently for an opportunity to come
forth and make its escape. If we turn out the creature from its
cell, we perceive it to be a small oval beetle, rather more than
COLEOPTERA. 55
one tenth of an inch long, of arusty black color, with a white spot
on the hinder part of the thorax, four or five white dots behind the
middle of each wing-cover, and a white spot, shaped like the
letter T’, on the exposed extremity of the body. This little insect
is the Bruchus Pist of Linneus, the pea-Bruchus, or pea-weevil,
but is better known in America by the incorrect name of pea-bug.
The original meaning of the word Bruchus is a devourer, and the
insects to which it is applied well deserve this name, for, in the
larva state, they devour the interior of seeds, often leaving but
little more than the hull untouched. They belong to a family of
the great weevil tribe called Brucuip#, and are distinguished
from other weevils by the following characters. ‘The body is
oval, and slightly convex ; the head is bent downwards, so that
the broad muzzle, when the insects are not eating, rests upon the
breast ; the antenne are short, straight, and saw-toothed within,
and are inserted close to a deep notch in each of the eyes; the
feelers, though very small, are visible ; the wing-cases do not
cover the end of the abdomen ; and the hindmost thighs are very
thick, and often notched or toothed on the under-side, as is the
case in the pea-weevil. The habits of the Bruchians and their larve
are similar to those of the pea-weevil, which remain to be de-
scribed. It may be well, however, to state here that these beetles
frequent the leguminous or pod-bearing plants, such as the pea,
Gleditsia, Robinia, Mimosa, Cassia, &c., during and immediately
after the flowering season ; they pierce the tender pods of these
plants, and commonly lay only one egg in each seed, the pulp of
which suffices for the food of the little maggot-like grub hatched
therein.
Few persons while indulging in the luxury of early green pease
are aware how many insects ‘hey unconsciously swallow. When
the pods are carefully examined, small, discolored spots may be
seen within them, each one corresponding to a similar spot on the
opposite pea. If this spot in the pea be opened, a minute whitish
grub, destitute of feet, will be found therein. It is the weevil in
its larva form, which lives upon the marrow of the pea, and arrives
at its full size by the time that the pea becomes dry. This larva
or grub then bores a round hole from the hollow in the centre of
the pea quite to the hull, but leaves the latter and generally the
56 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
‘germ of the future sprout untouched. Hence these buggy pease,
as they are called by seedsmen and gardeners, will frequently
sprout and grow when planted. ‘The grub is changed to a pupa
within its hole in the pea in the autumn, and before the spring
casts its skin again, becomes a beetle, and gnaws a hole through
the thin hull in order to make its escape into the air, which fre-
quently does not happen before the pease are planted for an early
crop. After the pea-vines have flowered, and while the pods are
young and tender, and the pease within them are just beginning to
swell, the beetles gather upon them, pierce the pods, and deposit.
their tiny eggs in the punctures. ‘This is done only during the
night, or in cloudy weather. Each egg is always placed opposite
to a pea; the grubs, as soon as they are hatched, penetrate the
pod and bury themselves in the pease; and the holes through
which they pass are so fine as hardly to be perceived, and are
soon closed. Sometimes every pea in a pod will be found to con-
tain a weevil-grub ; and so great has been the injury to the crop in
some parts of the country that the inhabitants have been obliged to
give up the cultivation of this vegetable.* ‘These insects, as Mr.
Deane has observed, diminish the weight of the pease in which
they lodge, nearly one half, and their leavings are fit only for the
food of swine. This occasions a great loss, where pease are
raised for feeding stock or for family use, as they are in many
places. Those persons, who eat whole pease in the winter after
they are raised, run the risk of eating the weevils also ; but if the
pease are kept till they are a year old, the insects will entirely
leave them.
The pea-weevil is supposed to bea native of the United States.
It seems to have been first noticed in Pennsylvania, many years
ago ; and has gradually spread from thence to New Jersey, New
York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. It is yet
rare in New Hampshire, and I believe has not appeared in the
eastern parts of Maine. It is unknown in the North of Europe, as
we learn from the interesting account given of it by Kalm, the
Swedish traveller, who tells us of the fear with which he was filled,
on finding some of these weevils in a parcel of pease which he had
_ * See Kalm’s Travels. 8vo. Warrington. 1770. Vol. I. p. 173.
COLEOPTERA. 57
carried home from America, having in view the whole damage
which his beloved country would have suffered, if only two or
three of these noxious insects had escaped him. They are now
common in the South of Europe and in England, whither they
may have been carried from this country. As the cultivated pea
was not originally a native of America, it would be interesting to
ascertain what plants the pea-weevil formerly inhabited. ‘That it
should have preferred the prolific exotic pea to any of our indi-
genous and less productive pulse, is not a matter of surprise, anal-
ogous facts being of common occurrence ; but that, for so many
years, a rational method for checking its ravages should not have
been practised, is somewhat remarkable. An exceedingly simple
one is recommended by Deane, but to be successful it should be
universally adopted. It consists merely in keeping seed-pease
in tight vessels over one year before planting them. Latreille
and others recommend putting them, just before they are to be
planted, into hot water for a minute or two, by which means the
weevils will be killed, and the sprouting of the pease will be
quickened. ‘The insect is limited to a certain period for deposit-
ing its eggs ; late sown pease therefore escape its attacks. The
late Colonel Pickering observed that those sown in Pennsylvania
as late as the twentieth of May, were entirely free from weevils ;
and Colonel Worthington, of Rensselaer county, New York, who
sowed his pease on the tenth of June, six years in succession,
never found an insect in them during that period.
The crow black-bird is said to devour great numbers of the
beetles in the spring; and the Baltimore oriole or hang-bird
splits open the green pods for the sake of the grubs contained in
the pease, thereby contributing greatly to prevent the increase of
these noxious insects. ‘The instinct that enables this beautiful
bird to detect the lurking grub, concealed, as the latter is, within
the pod and the hull of the pea, is worthy our highest admiration ;
and the goodness of Providence, which has endowed it with this
faculty, is still further shown in the economy of the insects also,
which, through His prospective care, are not only limited in the
season of their depredations, but are instinctively taught to spare
the germs of the pease, thereby securing a succession of crops for
our benefit and that of their own progeny.
8
58 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
The Attelabians (ATTELABIDZ) are distinguished from the
Bruchians by the form and greater length of the head, which is a
little inclined, and ends with a snout, sometimes short and thick,
and sometimes long, slender, and curved. ‘The eyes also are
round and entire ; and the antennze are usually implanted near the
middle of the snout. The larve resemble those of most of the
snout-beetles, being short, thick, whitish grubs, with horny heads,
the rings of the body very much hunched, and deprived of legs,
the place of which is supplied by fleshy warts along the under-side
of the body. Some of the European insects of this family are
known to be very injurious to the leaves, fruits, and seeds of
plants.
The different kinds of Attelabus are said to roll up the edges
of leaves, thereby forming little nests, of the shape and size of
thimbles, to contain their eggs, and to shelter their young, which
afterwards devour the leaves. ‘The larve and habits of our native
species are unknown to me. ‘The most common one here is the
Attelabus analis of Weber, or the red-tailed Attelabus. It is one
quarter of an inch long from the tip of the thick snout to the end
of the body. ‘The head, which is nearly cylindrical, the antenne,
legs, and middle of the breast are deep blue-black ; the thorax,
wing-covers, and abdomen are dull red ; the wing-covers taken
together, are nearly square, and are punctured in rows. This
beetle is found on the leaves of oak-trees in June and July.
The two-spotted Attelabus, Attelabus bipustulatus of Fabricius,
is also found on oak-leaves during the same season as the preced-
ing. Itis of a deep blue-black color, with a square dull red spot
on the shoulders of each wing-cover. It measures rather more
than one eighth of an inch in length.
Two or three beetles of this family are very hurtful to the vine,
in Europe, by nibbling the midrib of the leaves, so that the latter
may be rolled up to form a retreat for their young. ‘They also
puncture the buds and the tender fruit of this and of other plants.
In consequence of the damage, caused by them and by their
larve, whole vineyards are sometimes stripped of their leaves, and
fruit-trees are despoiled of their foliage and fruits. These insects
belong to the genus Rhynchites, a name given to them in allusion
to their snouts. I have not seen any of them on vines or fruit-
COLEOPTERA. 59
trees in this country. The largest one found here is the Rhyn-
chites bicolor of Fabricius, or two-colored Rhynchites. This
insect is met with in June, July, and August, on cultivated and
wild rose-bushes, sometimes in considerable numbers. ‘That they
injure these plants is highly probable, but the nature and extent of
the injury is not certainly known. The whole of the upper
side of this beetle is red, except the rather long and slender
snout, which, together with the antenne, legs, and under-side of
the body, is black; it is thickly covered with small punctures,
and is slightly downy, and there are rows of larger punctures on
the wing-covers. It measures one fifth of an inch from the eyes
to the tip of the abdomen.
The grubs of many kinds of Apion destroy the seeds of plants.
In Europe they do much mischief to clover in this way. They
receive the above name from the shape of the beetles, which
resembles that of a pear. Say’s Apion, Apion Sayz * of Schén-
herr, is a minute black species, not more than one tenth of an inch
long, exclusive of the slender sharp-pointed snout. Its grubs live
in the pods of the common wild indigo bush, Baptista tinctoria,
devouring the seeds. A smaller kind, somewhat like it, inhabits
the pods and eats the seeds of the locust-tree, or Robinia pseud-
acacia.
Naturalists place here a little group of snout-beetles, called
Brenruip#, or Brenthians, which differ entirely in their forms
from the other weevils, both in the beetle and grub state.
They have a long, narrow, and cylindrical body. The snout pro-
jects from the head in a straight line with the body, and varies in
shape according to the sex of the insect, and even in individuals of
the same sex. In the males it is broad and flat, sometimes as
long as the thorax, sometimes much shorter, and it is widened at
the tip, where are situated two strong nippers or upper jaws 3 in
the females it is long, very slender, and not enlarged at the ex-
tremity, and the nippers are not visible to the naked eye. The
feelers are too small to be seen. The antenne are short, straight,
slightly thickened towards the tip, and implanted before the prom-
inent eyes, on the middle of the snout in the males, and at the
* Apion rostrum, Say.
60 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
base of it in the females. The legs are short, the first pair being
the largest, and the hindmost unusually distant from the middle
pair. These insects live under the bark and in the trunks of
trees, but very little has been published respecting their habits ;
and the only description of their larve that has hitherto appeared
is contained in my first Report on the Insects of Massachusetts,
printed in the year 1838, in the seventy-second number of the
Documents of the House of Representatives.
The only beetle of this family known in the New England
States is the Brenthus (Arrhenodes) septemtrionis* of Herbst,
the northern Brenthus, so named because most of the other spe-
cies are tropical insects. It is of a mahogany-brown color ; the
wing-cases are somewhat darker, ornamented with narrow tawny
yellow spots, and marked with deep furrows, the sides of which
are punctured ; the thorax is nearly egg-shaped, broadest behind
the middle, and highly polished. The common length of this
insect, including the snout, is six tenths of an inch ; but much
larger as well as smaller specimens frequently occur. The north-
ern Brenthus inhabits the white oak, on the trunks and under the
bark of which it may be found in June and July, having then
completed its transformations. ‘The female, when about to lay
her eggs, punctures the bark with her slender snout, and drops an
egg in each hole thus made. The grub, as soon as it is hatched,
bores into the solid wood, forming a cylindrical passage, which it.
keeps clear by pushing its castings out of the orifice of the hole,
as fast as they accumulate. ‘These castings or chips are like very
fine saw-dust ; and the holes made by the insects are easily dis-
covered by the dust around them. When fully grown, the grub
measures rather more than an inch in length, and not quite one
tenth of an inch in thickness. It is nearly cylindrical, being only
a little flattened on the under-side, and is of a whitish color, ex-
cept the last segment, which is dark chestnut-brown. Each of
the first three segments is provided with a pair of legs, and there
is a fleshy prop-leg under the hinder extremity of the body. The
last segment is of a horny consistence, and is obliquely hollowed
* A mistake undoubtedly for septemtrionalis. It is the Brenthus mazillosus of
Olivier and Schonherr.
COLEOPTERA. 61
at the end, so as to form a kind of gouge or scoop, the edges of
which are furnished with little notches or teeth. It is by means
of this singular scoop that the grub shovels the minute grains of
wood out of its burrow. The pupa is met with in the burrow
formed by the larva. It is of a yellowish white color ; the head
is bent under the thorax, and the snout rests on the breast be-
tween the folded legs and wings; the back is furnished with
transverse rows of little thorns or sharp teeth, and there are two
larger thorns at the extremity of the body. ‘These minute thorns
probably enable the pupa to move towards the mouth of its bur-
row when it is about to be transformed, and may serve also to
keep its body steady during its exertions in casting off its pupa-
skin. ‘These insects are most abundant in trees that have been
cut down for timber or fuel, which are generally attacked during
the first summer after they are felled ; it has also been ascertained
that living trees do not always escape, but those that are in full
vigor are rarely perforated by grubs of this kind. The credit of
discovering the habits and transformations of the northern Bren-
thus is due to the Rev. L. W. Leonard, of Dublin, New Hamp-
shire, who has favored me with specimens in all their forms.
This insect is now known to inhabit nearly all the States in the
Union. Iam inclined to think that the Brenthians ought to be
placed at the end of the weevil tribe ; but I have not ventured to
alter the arrangement generally adopted.
The rest of the weevils are short and thick beetles, differing
from all the preceding in their antenne, which are bent or elbowed
near the middle, the first joint being much longer than the rest.
Their feelers are not perceptible. They belong to the family
CURCULIONID#, so called from the principal genus Curculio, a
name given by the Romans to the corn-weevil. The Curculio-
nians vary in the form, length, and direction of their snouts.
Those belonging to the old genus Curculio have short and thick
snouts, at the extremity of which, and near to the sides of the
mouth, the antenne are implanted ; those to which the name of
Rthynchenus was formerly applied have longer and more slender
snouts, usually bearing the antenne on or just behind the middle ;
and the third great genus, called Calandra, contains long-snouted
beetles, whose antennz are fixed just before the eyes at the base of
62 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
the snout. These weevils, being very numerous, and differing also.
greatly in their forms and habits, have latterly been divided into a
great number of genera, distinguished from each other by more or
less striking peculiarities. The convenience and simplicity of the
former arrangement has induced me to retain the old names Cur-
culio, Rhynchenus, and Calandra, for the few species to be here
described, while the names of the new genera, to which they have
been referred, will be included within parentheses.
Curculio (Pandeleteius) hilaris of Herbst, which we may call
the gray-sided Curculio, is a little pale brown beetle, variegated
with gray upon the sides. Its snout is short, broad, and slightly
furrowed in the middle ; there are three blackish stripes on the
thorax, between which are two of a light gray color; the wing-
covers have a broad stripe of light gray on the outer side, edged
within by a slender blackish line, and sending two short oblique
branches almost across each wing-cover ; and the fore-legs are
much larger than the others. The length of this beetle varies
from one eighth to one fifth of an inch. The larva lives in the
trunks of the white oak, on which the beetles may be found about
the last of May and the beginning of June.
The Pales weevil, Curculio (Hylobius) Pales of Herbst, is a
beetle of a deep chestnut-brown color, having a line and a few
dots of a yellowish white color on the thorax, and many small
yellowish white spots sprinkled over the wing-covers. All the
thighs are toothed beneath, and the snout is slender, cylindrical,
inclined, and nearly as long as the thorax. On account of the
length of the snout this insect has been placed in the genus Rhyn-
chenus by some naturalists ; but the antenne are implanted before
the middle of the snout, and not far from the sides of the mouth.
This beetle measures from two to three eighths of an inch in
length, exclusive of the snout. It may be found in great abun-
dance, in May and June, on board-fences, the sides of new wooden
buildings, and on the trunks of pine-trees. I have discovered
them, in considerable numbers, under the bark of the pitch-pine.
The larve, which do not materially differ from those of other
weevils, inhabit these and probably other kinds of pines, doing
sometimes immense injury to them. Wilson, the ornithologist,
COLEOPTERA. 63
describes the depredations of these insects, in his account * of the
ivory-billed wood-pecker, in the following words. ‘* Would it be
believed that the larve of an insect, or fly, not larger than a grain
of rice, should silently, and in one season, destroy some thousand
acres of pine trees, many of them from two to three feet in diam-
eter, and a hundred and fifty feet high ! Yet whoever passes along
the high road from Georgetown to Charleston, in South Carolina,
about twenty miles from the former place, can have striking and
melancholy proofs of the fact. In some places the whole woods,
as far as you can see around you, are dead, stripped of the bark,
their wintry-looking arms and bare trunks bleaching in the sun,
and tumbling to ruins before every blast, presenting a frightful
picture of desolation. Until some effectual preventive or more
complete remedy can be devised against these insects and their
larve, I would humbly suggest the propriety of protecting and
receiving with proper feelings of gratitude the services of this and
the whole tribe of wood-peckers, letting the odium of guilt fall to
its proper owners.”? Some years ago Mr. Nuttall kindly procured
for me, near the place above mentioned, specimens of the destruc-
tive insects referred to by Wilson. ‘They were of three kinds.
Those in greatest abundance were the Pales weevil. One of the
others was a larger, darker-colored weevil, without white spots on
it, and named Hylobius picivorus, by Germar and Schénherr, or
the pitch-eating weevil; it is seldom found in Massachusetts.
The third was the white pine weevil to be next described. It is
said that these beetles puncture the buds and the tender bark of
the small branches, and feed upon the juice, and that the young
shoots are often so much injured by them as to die and break off
at the wounded part. But it is in the larva state that they are
found to be most hurtful to the pines. ‘The larve live under the
bark, devouring its soft inner surface, and The tender newly
formed wood. When they abound, as they do in some of our
pine forests, they separate large pieces of bark from the wood be-
neath, im consequence of which the part perishes, and the tree
itself.soon languishes and dies.
The white pine weevil, Rhynchenus (Pissodes) Strobi+, of
* American Ornithology. Vol. IV. p. 21.
t Pissodes nemorensis of Germar.
64 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Professor Peck, unites with the two preceding insects in destroy-
ing the pines of this country, as above described. But it employs
also another mode of attack on the white pine, of which an inter-
esting account is given by the late Professor Peck, the first de-
scriber of the insect, in the fourth volume of the ‘‘ Massachusetts
Agricultural Repository and Journal,’”? accompanied by figures of
the insect. The lofty stature of the white pine, and the straight-
ness of its trunk depend, as Professor Peck has remarked, upon
the constant health of its leading shoot, for a long succession of
years; and if this shoot be destroyed, the tree becomes stunted
and deformed in its subsequent growth. This accident is not un-
common, and is caused by the ravages of the white pine wee-
vil. This beetle is oblong oval, rather slender, of a brownish
color, thickly punctured, and variegated with small brown, rust-
colored, and whitish scales. ‘There are two white dots on the
thorax ; the scutel is white ; and on the wing-covers, which are
punctured in rows, there is a whitish transverse band behind the
middle. The snout is longer than the thorax, slender, and a vegy
little inclined. The length of this insect, exclusive of its snout,
varies from one fifth to three tenths of an inch. Its eggs are de-
posited on the leading shoot of the pine, probably immediately
under the outer bark. The larve, hatched therefrom, bore into the
shoot in various directions, and probably remain in the wood more
than one year. When the feeding state is passed, but before the
insect is changed to a pupa, it gnaws a passage from the inside
quite to the bark, which, however, remaining untouched, serves
to shelter the little borers from the weather. After they have
changed to beetles, they have only to cut away the outer bark to
make their escape. They begin to come out early in September,
and continue to leave the wood through that month and a part of
October. The shoot at this time will be found pierced with
small round holes on all sides ; sometimes thirty or forty may be
counted on one shoot. Professor Peck has observed that an un-
limited increase is not permitted to this destructive insect ; and
that if it were, our forests would not produce a single mast. One
of the means appointed to restrain the increase of the white pine
weevil is a species of ichneumon-fly, endued with sagacity to dis-
cover the retreat of the larva, the body of which it stings, and
COLEOPTERA. 65
therein deposits an egg. From the latter a grub is hatched,
which devours the larva of the weevil, and is subsequently trans-
formed to a four-winged fly, in the habitation prepared for it. The
most effectual remedy against the increase of these weevils is to
cut off the shoot in August, or as soon as it is perceived to be
dead, and commit it, with its inhabitants, to the fire. Such is the
substance of Professor Peck’s history of this insect ; to which
may be added, that the beetles are found in great numbers, in
April and~ May, on fences, buildings, and pine-trees ; that they
probably secrete themselves during the winter in the crevices of
the bark, or about the roots of the trees, and deposit their eggs in
the spring ; or they may not usually leave the trees before spring.
Perhaps the method used for decoying the pine-eating beetles
in Europe may be practised here with advantage. It consists in
sticking some newly cut branches of pine-trees in the ground, in
an open place, during the season when the insects are about to lay
their eggs. In a few hours these branches will be covered with
the beetles, which may be shaken into a cloth and burned.
There are some of the long-snouted weevils which inhabit nuts
of various kinds. Hence they are called nut-weevils, and belong
chiefly to the modern genus Balaninus, a name that signifies liv-
ing or being in a nut. The common nut-weevil of Europe lays
her-eggs in the hazel-nut and filbert, having previously bored a
hole for that purpose with her long and slender snout, while the
fruit is young and tender, and dropping only one egg in each nut
thus pricked. A little grub is soon hatched from the egg, and
begins immediately to devour the soft kernel. Notwithstanding
this, the nut continues to increase in size, and, by the time that it
is ripe and ready to fall, its little inhabitant also comes to its
growth, gnaws a round hole in the shell, through which it after-
wards makes its escape, and burrows in the ground. Here it
remains unchanged through the winter, and in the following sum-
mer, having completed its transformations, it comes out of the
ground a beetle.
In this country weevil-grubs are very common in hazel-nuts,
chestnuts, and acorns ; but I have not hitherto been able to rear
any of them to the beetle state. The most common of the nut-
weevils known to me appears to be the Rhynchenus (Balaninus)
~
66 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
nasicus of Say; the long-snouted nut-weevil. Its form is oval,
and its ground color dark brown; but it is clothed with very
short rust-yellow flattened hairs, which more or less conceal its
original color, and are disposed in spots on its wing-covers. ‘The
snout is brown and polished, longer than the whole body, as slen-
der as a bristle, of equal thickness from one end to the other, and
slightly curved ; it bears the long elbowed antenne, which are as
fine as a hair, just behind the middle. ‘This beetle measures
nearly three tenths of an inch in length, exclusive of the snout.
It is found in September and October, and more rarely in July, at
which time it probably lays its eggs. As it does not come out till
the autumn, it must pass the winter concealed in some secure
place. From its size and resemblance to the nut-weevil of Eu-
rope, it may be the species which attacks the hazel-nut here.
It is now well known that the falling of unripe plums, apricots,
peaches, and cherries is caused by little whitish grubs, which bore
into these fruits. The loss of fruit, occasioned by inse f this
kind, is frequently very great ; and, in some of our gardens and
orchards, the crop of plums is often entirely ruined by the depre-
dations of grubs, which have been ascertained to be the larve or
young of a small beetle of the weevil tribe, called Rhynchenus
(Conotrachelus) Nenuphar*, the Nenuphar or plum-weevil. I
have found these beetles as early as the thirtieth of March, and as
late as the tenth of June, and at various intermediate times,
accordingtwith the forwardness or backwardness of vegetation in
the spring, and have frequently caught them flying in the middle
of the day. They are from three twentieths to one fifth of an
inch long, exclusive of the curved snout, which is rather longer
than the thorax, and is bent under the breast, between the fore-
legs, when at rest. Their color is a dark brown, variegated with
spots of white, ochre-yellow, and black. The thorax is uneven ;
the wing-covers have several short ridges upon them, those on the
middle of the back forming two considerable humps, of a black
color, behind which there is a wide band of ochre-yellow and
white. Each of the thighs has two little teeth on the under-side.
* First described by Herbst, in 1797, under the name of Curculio Nenuphar ;
Fabricius redescribed it under that of Rhynchenus Argula; and Dejean has named
it Conotrachelus variegatus.
COLEOPTERA. 67
They begin to sting the plums as soon as the fruit is set, and, as
some say, continue their operations till the first of August. After
making a suitable puncture with their snouts, they lay one egg in
each plum thus stung, and go over the fruit on the tree in this
way till their store is exhausted; so that, where these beetles
abound, not a plum will escape being punctured. The irritation
arising from these punctures, and from the gnawings of the grubs
after they are hatched, causes the young fruit to become gummy,
diseased, and finally to drop before it is ripe. Meanwhile the
grub comes to its growth, and, immediately after the fruit falls,
burrows into the ground. ‘This may occur at various times be-
tween the middle of June and of August ; and, in the space of a
little more than three weeks afterwards, the insect completes its
transformations, and comes out of the ground in the beetle form.
The history of the insect thus far is the result of my own observa-
tions ;_ the remainder rests on the testimony of other persons.
I
account of the plum-weevil, by Dr. James Tilton of
Wilmington, Delaware, published in Mease’s ‘¢ Domestic Ency-
clopedia,”’ under the article Fruzt, and since republished in the
“¢ Georgical Papers for 1809” of the Massachusetts Agricultural
Society, and in other works, it is stated, that peaches, nectarines,
apples, pears, quinces, and cherries are also attacked by this
insect, and that it remains in the earth, in the form of a grub, dur-
ing the winter, ready to be matured into a beetle as the spring
advances. ‘These statements I have not yet been able’ to con-
firm. It seems, however, to have been fully ascertained by
Professor Peck, Mr. Say, and others, in whose accuracy full
confidence may be placed, that this same weevil attacks all- our
common stone-fruits, such as plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots,
and cherries ; Dr. Burnett has recently assured me that he has seen
this beetle puncturing apples ; and it is not at all improbable that
the transformations of some of the grubs may be retarded till: the
winter has passed, analogous cases being of frequent occurrence.
Those that are sometimes found in apples must not be mistaken
for the more common apple-worms, which are not the larve of a
weevil. The Rev. F. V. Melsheimer remarks in his Catalogue,
that this insect lives under the bark of the peach-tree. Professor
Peck raised the same beetle from a grub found in the warty ex-
%
68 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
crescence of a cherry-tree, and from this circumstance named it
Rhynchenus Cerasi, the cherry-weevil. The plum, still more than
the cherry tree, is subject to a disease of the small limbs, which
shows itself in the form of large irregular warts, of a black color, as
if charred. Grubs, apparently the same as those that are found in
plums, have often been detected in these warts, which are now gen-
erally supposed to be produced by the punctures of the beetles, and
the residence of the grubs. Professor Peck says that ‘‘ the seat
of the disease is in the bark. The sap is diverted from its regular
course, and is absorbed entirely by the bark, which is very much
increased in thickness ; the cuticle bursts, the swelling becomes
irregular, and is formed into black lumps, with a cracked, uneven,
granulated surface. ‘The wood, besides being deprived of its
nutriment, is very much compressed, and the branch above the
tumor perishes.””* The grubs found by Professor Peck in the
tumors of the cherry-tree, went into the ground on the sixth of
July, and on the thirtieth of the same month, or twenty ys
, and
from their leaving the bark, the perfect insects began to
were soon ready to deposit their eggs in healthy branches.
In order to account for the occurrence of these insects both in
the fruit and in the branches of the trees, I have ventured, on an-
other occasion, to give the following explanation, although it rests
only upon conjecture. ‘The final transformation of the grubs, liv-
ing in the fruit, appears to take place at various times during the lat-
ter part of summer and the beginning of autumn, when the weevil,
finding no young fruit, is probably obliged to lay its eggs in the
small branches. ‘The larve or grubs from these eggs live in the
branches during the winter, and are not perfected till near the last
of the following June. Should the fall of the fruit occur late in
the autumn, the development of the beetles will be retarded till
the next spring ; and this I suppose to be the origin of the brood
which stings the fruit. These suggestions seem to receive somé
confirmation from the known habits of the copper-colored plum-
weevils of Europe, which, ‘‘ in default of plums, make use of the
soft spring shoots of the plum and apricot trees.’? + In cases like
* See Professor Peck’s account of Insects which affect Oaks and Cherry trees;
with a plate ; in the ‘‘ Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal.” Vol,
v. p. 312.
| Kollar’s Treatise, p. 238.
COLEOPTERA. 69
these, we see the care of the Creator for some of the least of his
creatures, which He has wisely provided with variable instincts,
enabling them to accommodate themselves to the difficulties of the
situation in which they may happen to be placed, and thus, even
in unfruitful seasons, to provide for a succession of their kind.
The following, among other remedies that have been suggested,
may be found useful in checking the ravages of the plum-weevil.
Let the treea#be briskly shaken or suddenly jarred every morning
and’ evening during the time that the insects appear in the beetle
form, and are engaged in laying their eggs. When thus disturbed
they contract their legs and fall ; and, as they do not immediately
attempt to fly or crawl away, they may be caught in a sheet spread
under the tree, from which they should be gathered into a large
wide-mouthed bottle or other tight vessel, and be thrown into the
fire. All the fallen wormy plums should be immediately gathered,
an er they are boiled or steamed, to kill the enclosed grubs,
t be given as food to swine. The diseased excrescences
sh cut out and burned every year before the last of June.
The moose plum-tree (Prunus Americana), which grows wild in
Maine, seems to escape the attacks of insects, for no warts are
found upon it, even when growing in the immediate vicinity of
diseased foreign trees. It would, therefore, be the best of stocks
for budding or engrafting upon. It can easily be raised from the
stone, and grows rapidly, but does not attain a great size. For
further suggestions and remarks, the. account of this insect by
Dr. Joel Burnett, in the eighteenth volume of the ‘* New England
Farmer,’’ may be consulted.
The most pernicious of the Rhynchophorians, or snout-beetles,
are the insects properly called grain-weevils, belonging to the old
genus Calandra. These insects must not be confounded with the
still more destructive larve of the corn-moth (Tinea granella),
which also attacks stored grain, nor with the orange-colored mag-
gots of the wheat-fly (Cecidomyia Tritict), which are found in the
ears of growing wheat. Although the grain-weevils are not
actually injurious to vegetation, yet as the name properly belong-
ing to them has often been misapplied in this country, thereby
creating no little confusion, some remarks upon them may tend to
prevent future mistakes.
The true grain-weevil or wheat-weevil of Europe, Calandra
70 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
(Sitophilus) granaria, or Curculio granarius of Linneus, in its
perfected state is a slender beetle of a pitchy red color, about one
eighth of an inch long, with a slender snout slightly bent down-
wards, a coarsely punctured and very long thorax, constituting
almost one half the length of the whole body, and wing-covers
that are furrowed, and do not entirely cover the tip of the abdo-
men. This little insect, both in the beetle and grub state, devours
stored wheat and other grains, and often commits fitch havoc in
granaries and brew-houses. Its powers of multiplication are Very
great, for it is stated that a single pair of these destroyers may
produce above six thousand descendants in one year. ‘The female
deposits her eggs upon the wheat after it is housed, and the young
grubs hatched therefrom immediately burrow into the wheat, each
individual occupying alone a single grain, the substance of which
it devours, so as often to leave nothing but the hull ; and this
destruction goes on within, while no external appearance to
its discovery, and the loss of weight is the only evide e
mischief that has been done to the grain. In due time bs
undergo their transformations, and come out of the hulls, in the
beetle state, to lay their eggs for another brood. ‘These insects
are effectually destroyed by kiln-drying the wheat ; and grain, that
is kept cool, well ventilated, and is frequently moved, is said to
be exempt from attack.
Another grain-weevil, hardly differing from the foregoing except
in its color, which is black, is found in New York. It is the
Calandra (Sitophilus) remotepunctata of Schénherr. Whether
wheat, and other grain, suffers to any extent in this country from
either of these weevils, I have not been able to ascertain, as the
accounts given of the ravages of the insects supposed to be
weevils are rarely accompanied by any descriptions of them in
their different states.
Rice is attacked by an insect closely resembling the wheat-
weevil, from which, however, it is distinguished, by having two
large red spots on each wing-cover ; it is also somewhat smaller,
measuring only about one tenth of an inch in length, exclusive of
the snout. This beetle, the Calandra (Sttophilus) Oryze,* or
rice-weevil, is not entirely confined to rice, but depredates upon
* Curculio Oryze of Linneus.
COLEOPTERA. al
maize or Indian corn also. I have seen stored Southern corn
swarming with them ; and, should they multiply and extend in this
section of the country, they will become a source of serious
injury to one of the most valuable of our staple productions. It
is said that this weevil lays its eggs on the rice in the fields, as
soon as the grain begins to swell. If this indeed be true, we have
very little to fear from it here, our Indian corn being so well pro-
tected by the fusks that it would probably escape from any injury,
if attacked. On the contrary, if the insects multiply in stored
grain, then our utmost care will be necessary to prevent them
from infesting our own garners. ‘The parent beetle bores a hole
into the grain, and drops therein a single egg, going from one grain
to another till all her eggs are laid. She then dies, leaving, how-
ever, the rice well seeded for a future harvest of weevil-grubs.
In due time the eggs are hatched, the grubs live securely and un-
seen in the centre of the rice, devouring a considerable portion of
its ce, and when fully grown they gnaw a little hole through
the the grain, artfully stopping it up again with particles of
rice-flour, and then are changed to pupe. ‘This usually occurs
during the winter ; and in the following spring the insects are
transformed to beetles, and come out of the grain. By winnowing
and sifting the rice in the spring, the beetles can be separated, and
should then be gathered immediately and destroyed.
The sudden change of the temperature that generally occurs in
the early part of May, brings out great numbers of insects, from
their winter-quarters, to enjoy the sunshine and the ardent heat
which are congenial to their natures. While a continued hum
is heard, among the branches of the trees, from thousands of bees
and flies, drawn thither by the fragrance of the bursting buds and
the tender foliage, and the very ground beneath our feet seems
teeming with insect life, swarms of little beetles of various kinds
come forth to try their wings, and, with an uncertain and heavy
flight, launch into the air. Among these beetles there are many
of a dull red or fox color, nearly cylindrical in form, tapering a
very little before, obtusely rounded at both extremities, and about
one quarter of an inch in length. They are seen slowly creeping
upon the sides of wooden buildings, resting on the tops of fences,
or wheeling about in the air, and every now and then suddenly
72 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
alighting on some tree or wall, or dropping to the ground. If we
go to an old pine-tree we may discover from whence they have
come, and what they have been about during the past period of
their lives. Here they will be found creeping out of thousands of
small round holes which they have made through the bark for
their escape. Upon raising a piece of the bark, already loosened
by the undermining of these insects, we find it pierced with holes
in every direction, and even the surface of the wood will be seen
to have been gnawed by these little miners. After enjoying
themselves abroad for a few days, they pair, and begin to lay
their eggs. The pitch-pine is most generally chosen by them for
this purpose, but they also attack other kinds of pines. ‘They
gnaw little holes here and there through the rough bark of the
trunk and limbs, drop their eggs therein, and, after this labor is
finished, they become exhausted and die. In the autumn the
grubs hatched from these eggs will be found fully grown. es hey
have a short, thick, nearly cylindrical body, wrinkled on ck,
are somewhat curved, and of a yellowish white color, wi orny
darker colored head, and are destitute of feet. They devour
the soft inner substance of the bark, boring through it in various
directions for this purpose,and, when they have come to their full
size, they gnawa passage to the surface, for their escape after they
have completed their transformations. These take place deep in
their burrows late in the autumn, at which time the insects may be
found in various states of maturity, within the bark. ‘Their depre-
dations interrupt the descent of the sap, and prevent the formation
of new wood ; the bark becomes loosened from the wood, to a
greater or less extent, and the tree languishes and prematurely
decays. The name of this insect is Hylurgus terebrans*, the
boring Hylurgus ; the generical name signifying a carpenter, or
worker in wood. It belongs to the family Scotyrip2, including
various kinds of destructive insects, which may be called cylindri-
cal bark-beetles. The insects of this family may be recognised
by the following characters. The body is nearly cylindrical, ob-
tuse before and behind, and generally of some shade of brown.
The head is rounded, sunk pretty deeply in the forepart of the
thorax, and does not end with a snout; the antenne are short,
* Scolytus terebrans of Olivier.
COLEOPTERA. 73
more or less crooked or curved in the middle, and end with an
oval knob ; the feelers are very short. The thorax is rather long,
and as broad as the following part of the body. The wing-covers
are frequently cut off obliquely or hollowed at the hinder ex-
tremity. ‘The legs are short and strong, with little teeth on the
outer edge or extremity of the shanks, and the feet are not wide
and spongy beneath.
Though these cylindrical bark-beetles are of small size, they
multiply very fast, and where they abound are productive of much
mischief, particularly in forests, which are often greatly injured by
their larve, and the wood is rendered unfit for the purposes of
art. In the year 1780, an insect of this family made its appear-
ance in the pine-trees of one of the mining districts of Germany,
where it increased so rapidly that in three years afterwards whole
forests had disappeared beneath its ravages, and an end was
nearly put to the working of the extensive mines in this range of
cnn the want of fuel to carry on the operations. Pines
and firs are the most subject to their attacks, but there are some
kinds which infest other trees. The premature decay of the elm
in some parts of Europe is occasioned by the ravages of the
Scolytus destructor, of which an interesting account was written in
1824, by Mr. Macleay. An abstract of his paper may be found
in the fifth volume of the ‘‘ New England Farmer.” * The larve-
or grubs of these bark-beetles resemble those of the Hylurgus
terebrans or pine bark-beetle already described. Like the grubs
of the weevils, they are short and thick, and destitute of legs.
The red cedar is inhabited by a very small bark-beetle, named
by Mr. Say Hylurgus dentatus, the toothed Hylurgus. It is
nearly one tenth of an inch in length, and of a dark brown color ;
the wing-cases are rough with little grains, which become more
elevated towards the hinder part, and are arranged in longitudinal
rows, with little furrows between them. The tooth-like appear-
ance of these little elevations suggested the name given to this
species. ‘The female bores a cylindrical passage beneath the
bark of the cedar, dropping her eggs at short intervals as she goes
along, and dies at the end of her burrow when her eggs are all
* Page 169.
10
74 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
laid. The grubs hatched from these proceed in feeding nearly at
right angles, forming on each side numerous parallel furrows,
smaller than the central tube of the female. ‘They complete their
transformations in October, and eat their way through the bark,
which will then be seen to be perforated with thousands of little
round holes, through which the beetles have escaped.
Under the bark of the pitch-pine I have found, in company
with the pine bark-beetle, a more slender bark-beetle, of a
dark chestnut-brown color, clothed with a few short yellowish
hairs, with a long, almost egg-shaped thorax, which is very rough
before, and short wing-covers, deeply punctured in rows, hol-
lowed out at the tip like a gouge, and beset around the outer edge
of the hollow with six little teeth on each side. This beetle
measures one fifth of an inch, or rather more, in length. It
arrives at maturity in the autumn, but does not come out of the
bark till the following spring, at which time it lays its eggs. It is
the Tomicus exesus, or excavated Tomicus ; the speci
ame,
r. Say on
account of the hollowed and bitten appearance of the end of its
signifying eaten out or excavated, was given to it by
wing-covers. Its grubs eat zigzag and wavy passages, parallel to
each other, between the bark and the wood. ‘They are much less
common in the New England than in the Middle and Southern
States, where they abound in the yellow pines.
Another bark-beetle is found here, closely resembling the pre-
ceding, from which it differs chiefly in the inferiority of its size,
being but three twentieths of an inch in length, and in having only
three or four teeth at the outer extremity of each wing-cover. It
is the Tomicus Pini of Mr. Say. The grubs of this insect are
very injurious to pine-trees. I have found them under the bark
of the white and pitch pine, and they have also been discovered
in the larch. ‘The beetles appear during the month of August.
For many years past the pear-tree has been found to be subject ©
to a peculiar malady, which shows itself during midsummer by the
sudden withering of the leaves and fruit, and the discoloration of -
the bark of one or more of the limbs, followed by the immediate
death of the part affected. In June, 1816, the Hon. John
Lowell, of Roxbury, discovered a minute insect in one of the
affected limbs of a pear-tree ; afterwards he repeatedly detected
COLEOPTERA. 75
the same insects in blasted limbs, and his discoveries have been
confirmed by Mr. Henry Wheeler and the late Dr. Oliver Fiske,
of Worcester. Mr. Lowell submitted the limb and the insect
contained therein to the examination of Professor Peck, who
gave an account and figure of the latter, in the fourth volume of
the ‘* Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal.”? From
this account, and from the subsequent communication by Mr.
Lowell, in the fifth volume of the ‘‘ New England Farmer,”’ it
appears that the grub or larva of the insect eats its way inward
through the alburnum or sap-wood into the hardest part of the
wood, beginning at the root of a bud, behind which probably the
egg was deposited, following the course of the eye of the bud
towards the pith, around which it passes, and part of which it also
consumes ; thus forming, after penetrating through the alburnum, a
circular burrow or passage in the heart-wood, contiguous to the
pith which it surrounds. By this means the central vessels, or
those w ich convey the ascending sap, are divided, and the circu-
lation is cut off. This takes place when the increasing heat of the
atmosphere, producing a greater transpiration from the leaves, ren-
ders a large and continued flow of sap necessary to supply the
evaporation. For the want of this, or from some other unexplain-
ed cause, the whole of the limb above the seat of the insect’s
operations suddenly withers, and perishes during the intense heat
of midsummer. ‘The larva is changed to a pupa, and subse-
quently to a little beetle, in the bottom of its burrow, makes its
escape from the tree in the latter part of June, or beginning of
July, and probably deposits its eggs before August has passed.
This little beetle, which is only one tenth of an inch in length, was
named Scolytus Pyri, the pear-tree Scolytus, by Professor Peck ;
it is of a deep brown color, with the antenne and legs rather
paler, or of the color of iron-rust. The thorax is short, very
convex, rounded and rough before ; the wing-covers are minutely
punctured in rows, and slope off yery suddenly and obliquely be-
hind; the shanks are widened and flattened towards the end,
beset with a few little teeth externally, and end with a short hook ;
and the joints of the feet are slender and entire. It is evident
that this insect cannot be retained in the genus Scolytus, as defined
by modern naturalists ; but the condition of my specimens will
76 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
not enable me to determine with certainty to which of the modern
genera they are to be referred. ‘The minuteness of the insect,
the difficulty attending the discovery of the precise seat of its
operations before it has left the tree, and the small size of the
aperture through which it makes its escape from the limb, are
probably the reasons why it has eluded the researches of those
persons who disbelieve in its existence as the cause of the blasting
of the limbs of the pear-tree. It is to be scught for at or near the
lowest part of the diseased limbs, and in the immediate vicinity of
the buds situated about that part. ‘The remedy, suggested by
Mr. Lowell and Professor Peck, to prevent other limbs and trees
from being subsequently attacked in the same way, consists in
cutting off the blasted limb below the seat of injury, and burning it
before the perfect insect has made its escape. It will therefore be
necessary, carefully to examine our pear-trees daily, durmg the
month of June, and watch for the first indication of disease, or the
remedy may be applied too late to prevent the dispersion of the
insects among other trees. t
There are some other beetles, much like the preceding in form,
whose grubs bore into the solid wood of trees. ‘They were for-
merly included among the cylindrical bark-beetles, but have been
separated from them recently, and now form the family Bosrri-
cHID&, or Bostrichians. Some of these beetles are of large size,
measuring more than an inch in length, and, in the tropical regions
where they are found, must prove very injurious to the trees they
inhabit. The body ,in these beetles is hard and cylindrical, and
generally of a black color. The thorax is bulging before, and the
head is sunk and almost concealed under the projecting forepart of
it. The antenne are of moderate length, and end with three large
joints, which are saw-toothed internally. The larve are mostly
wood-eaters, and are whitish fleshy grubs, wrinkled on the back,
furnished with six legs, and resemble in form the grubs of some of
the small Scarabeians. The skagbark or walnut tree is sometimes
infested by the grubs of the red-shouldered A pate, or Apate basil-
laris of Say, an insect of this family. The grubs bore diametri-
cally through the trunks of the walnut to the very heart, and un-
dergo their transformations in the bottom of their burrows. Sev-
eral trees have fallen under my observation which have been
COLEOPTERA. 77
entirely killed by these insects. ‘The beetles are of a deep
black color, and are punctured all over. The thorax is very
convex and rough before ; the wing-covers are not excavated at
the tip, but they slope downwards very suddenly behind, as if
obliquely cut off, the outer edge of the cut portion is armed with
three little teeth on each wing-cover, and on the base or shoulders
there is a large red spot. ‘This insect measures one fifth of an
inch or more in length.
The most powerful and destructive af the wood-eating insects
are the grubs of the long-horned or Capricorn-beetles, (CERAMBY-
cip&), called borers by way of distinction. There are many
kinds of borers which do not belong to this tribe. Some of them
have already been described, and others will be mentioned under
the orders to which they belong. Those now under considera-
tion differ much from each other in their habits. Some live alto-
gether in the trunks of trees, others in the limbs ; some devour
the wood, others the pith ; some are found only in shrubs, some
in the stems of herbaceous plants, and others are confined to
roots. Certain kinds are limited to plants of one species, others
live indiscriminately upon several plants of one natural family ; but
the same kind of borer is not known to inhabit plants differing
essentially from each other in their natural characters. As might
be expected from these circumstances, the beetles produced from
these borers are of many different kinds. Nearly one hundred
species have been found in Massachusetts, and probably many
more remain to be discovered. ‘The Capricorn-beetles agree in
the following respects. ‘he antenne are long and tapering, and
generally curved like the horns of a goat, which is the origin of the
name above given to these beetles. The body is oblong, ap-
proaching to a cylindrical form, a little flattened above, and taper-
ing somewhat behind. ‘The head is short, and armed with powerful
jaws. ‘The thorax is either square, barrel-shaped, or narrowed
before ; and is not so wide behind as the wing-covers. The legs
are long; the thighs thickened in the middle; the feet four-
jointed, not formed for rapid motion, but for standing securely,
being broad and cushioned beneath, with the third joint deeply
notched. Most of these beetles remain upon trees and shrubs
during the daytime, but fly abroad at night. Some of them,
78 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
however, fly by day, and may be found on flowers, feeding on the
pollen and the blossoms. When annoyed or taken into the hands,
they make a squeaking sound by rubbing the joints of the thorax
and abdomen together. ‘The females are generally larger and
more robust than the males, and have rather shorter antenne.
Moreover they are provided with a jointed tube at the end of the
body, capable of being extended or drawn in like the joints of a
telescope, by means of which they convey their eggs into the
holes and chinks of the bark of plants.
The larve hatched from these eggs are long, whitish, fleshy
grubs, with the transverse incisions of the body very deeply
marked, so that the rings are very convex or hunched both above
and below. The body tapers a little behind, and is blunt-pointed.
The head is much smaller than the first ring, slightly bent down-
wards, of a horny consistence, and is provided with short but very
powerful jaws, by means whereof the insect can bore, as with a
centre-bit, a cylindrical passage through the most solid wood.
Some of these borers have six very small legs, namely, one pair
under each of the first three rings ; but most of them want even
these short and imperfect limbs, and move through their burrows
by the alternate extension and contraction of their bodies, on each
or on most of the rings of which, both above and below, there is
an oval space covered with little elevations, somewhat like the
teeth of a fine rasp; and these little oval rasps, which are de-
signed to aid the grubs in their motions, fully make up to them the
want of proper feet. Some of these borers always keep one end
of their burrows open, out of which, from time to time, they cast
their chips, resembling coarse saw-dust ; others, as fast as they
proceed, fill up the passages behind them with their castings, well
known here by the name of powder-post. ‘These borers live from
one year to three, or perhaps more years before they come to
their growth. ‘They undergo their transformations at the furthest
extremity of their burrows, many of them previously gnawing a
passage through the wood to the inside of the bark, for their future
escape. ‘The pupa is at first soft and whitish, and it exhibits all
the parts of the future beetle under a filmy veil which inwraps
every limb. The wings and legs are folded upon the breast, the
long antenne are turned back against the sides of the body, and
COLEOPTERA. 79
then bent forwards between the legs. When the beetle has
thrown off its pupa-skin, it gnaws away the thin coat of bark that
covers the mouth of its burrow, and comes out of its dark and
confined retreat, to breathe the fresh air, and to enjoy for the first
time the pleasure of sight, and the use of the legs and wings with
which it is provided.
The Capricorn-beetles have been divided into three families,
corresponding with the genera Prionus, Cerambyx, and Leptura
of Linneus. ‘Those belonging to the first family are generally of
a brown color, have flattened and saw-toothed or beaded antenne
of a moderate length, projecting jaws, and kidney-shaped eyes.
Those in the second, have eyes of the same shape, more slender
or much longer antenne, and smaller jaws ; and are often variegat-
ed in their colors. ‘The beetles belonging to the third family are
readily distinguished by their eyes, which are round and promi-
nent. ‘These three families are divided into many smaller groups
and genera, the peculiarities of which cannot be particularly point-
ed out in a work of this kind.
The Prionians, or Prionrp#, derive their name from a Greek
word signifying a saw, which has been applied to them either be-
cause the antenne, in most of these beetles, consist of flattened
joints, projecting internally somewhat like the teeth of a saw, or
on account of their upper jaws, which sometimes are very long
and toothed within. It is said that some of the beetles thus
armed can saw off large limbs by seizing them between their jaws,
and flying or whirling sidewise round the enclosed limb, till it is
completely divided. ‘The largest insects of the Capricorn tribe
belong to this family, some of the tropical species measuring five
or six inches in length, and one inch and a half or two inches in
breadth. ‘Their larve are broader and more flattened than the
grubs of the other Capricorn-beetles, and are provided with six
very short legs. When about to be transformed, they collect a
quantity of their chips around them, and make therewith an oval
pod or cocoon, to enclose themselves.
Our largest species is the broad-necked Prionus, Prionus lati-
collis* of Drury, its first describer. It is of along oval shape
* Prionus brevicornis of Fabricius. °
80 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
and of a pitchy black color. The jaws, though short, are very
thick and strong ; the antenne are stout and saw-toothed in the
male, and more slender in the other sex; the thorax is short and
wide, and armed on the lateral edges with three teeth; the wing-
covers have three slightly elevated lines on each of them, and are
rough with a multitude of large punctures, which run together
irregularly. It measures from one inch and one eighth, to one
inch and three quarters in length; the females being always much
larger than the males. The grubs of this beetle, when fully
grown, are as thick as a man’s thumb. ‘They live in the trunks
and roots of the balm of gilead, Lombardy poplar, and probably
in those of other kinds of poplar also. The beetles may fre-
quently be seen upon, or flying round the trunks of these trees in
the month of July, even in the daytime, though the other kinds of
Prionus generally fly only by night.
The one-colored Prionus, Prionus unicolor* of Drury, inhabits
pine-trees. Its body is long, narrow, and flattened, of a light bay-
brown color, with the head and antenne darker. ‘The thorax is
very short, and armed on each side with three sharp teeth ; the
wing-covers are nearly of equal breadth throughout, and have
three slightly elevated ribs on each of them. ‘This beetle meas-
ures from one inch and one quarter, to one inch and a half in
length, and about three or four tenths of an inch in breadth. It
flies by night, and frequently enters houses in the evening, from
the middle of July to September.
The second family of the Capricorn-beetles may be allowed to
retain the scientific name, CERAMBYCID2, of the tribe to which it
belongs. ‘The Cerambycians have not the very prominent jaws of
the Prionians ; their eyes are always kidney-shaped or notched
for the reception of the first joint of the antenne, which are not
saw-toothed, but generally slender and tapering, sometimes of
moderate length, sometimes excessively long, especially in the
males ; the thorax is longer and more convex than in the preced-
ing family, not thin-edged, but often rounded at the sides.
Some of these beetles, distinguished by their narrow wing-
covers, which are notched or armed with two little thorns at the
« * P. cylindricus of Fabricius.
COLEOPTERA. 81
tip, and by the great length of their antenne, belong to the genus
Stenocorus, a name signifying narrow or straitened. One of
them, which is rare here, inhabits the hickory, in its larva state
forming long galleries in the trunk of this tree in the direction
of the fibres of the wood. ‘This beetle is the Stenocorus (Ceras-
phorus) cinctus*, or banded Stenocorus. It is of a hazel color,
with a tint of gray, arising from the short hairs with which it is
covered ; there is an oblique ochre-yellow band across each wing-
cover ; and a short spine or thorn on the middle of each side of
the thorax. ‘The antenne of the males are more than twice the
length of the body, which measures from three quarters of an inch
to one inch,and one quarter in length.
The ground beneath black and white oaks is often observed to
be strewn with small branches, neatly severed from these trees as
if cut off with a saw. Upon splitting open the cut end of a branch,
in the autumn or winter after it has fallen, it will be found to be
perforated to the extent of six or eight inches in the course of the
pith, and a slender grub, the author of the mischief, will be dis-
covered therein. In the spring this grub is transformed to a pupa,
and in June or July it is changed toa beetle, and comes out of the
branch. ‘The history of this insect was first made public by Pro-
fessor Peck}, who called it the oak-pruner, or Stenocorus (Ela-
phidion) putator. In its adult state it is a slender long-horned
beetle, of a dull brown color, sprinkled with gray spots, composed
of very short close hairs ; the antenne are longer than the body, in
the males, and equal to it in Jength in the other sex, and the
third and fourth joints are tipped with a small spine or thorn; the
thorax is barrel-shaped, and not spined at the sides; and the
soutel® yellowish white. It varies in Jength from four and a half
to six tenths of an inch. It lays its eggsin July. Each egg is
placed close to the axilla or joint of a leaf-stalk or of a small twig,
near the extremity of a branch. The grub hatched from it pene-
trates at that spot to the pith, and then continues its course
towards the body of the tree, devouring the pith, and theteby
forming a cylindrical burrow, several inches in length, in the centre
* Cerambyz cinctus, Drury ; Stenocorus garganicus, Fabricius.
t Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal. Vol. V., with a plate.
ii
82 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
of the branch. Having reached its full size, which it does towards
the end of the summer, it divides the branch at the lower end of
its burrow, by gnawing away the wood transversely from within,
leaving only the ring of bark untouched. It then retires backwards,
stops up the end of its hole, near the transverse section, with
fibres of the wood, and awaits the fall of the branch, which is
usually broken off and precipitated to the ground by the autumnal
winds. ‘The leaves of the oak are rarely shed before the branch
falls, and thus serve to break the shock. Branches of five or six
feet in length and an inch in diameter are thus severed by these
insects, a kind of pruning that must be injurious to the trees, and
should be guarded against if possible. By collecting the fallen
branches in the autumn, and burning them before the spring, we
prevent the development of the beetles, while we derive some
benefit from the branches as fuel. 3
It is somewhat remarkable that, while the pine and fir tribes
rarely suffer to any extent from the depredations of caterpillars
and other leaf-eating insects, the resinous odor of these trees,
offensive as it is to such insects, does not prevent many kinds of
borers from burrowing into and destroying their trunks. Several
of the Capricorn-beetles, while in the grub state, live only in pine
and fir trees, or in timber of these kinds of wood. ‘They belong
chiefly to the genus Callzidium, a name of unknown or obscure
origin. Their antenne are of moderate length; they have a
somewhat flattened body ; the head nods forwards, as in Stenoco-
rus ; the thorax is broad, nearly circular, and somewhat flattened
or indented above ; and the thighs are very slender next to the
body, but remarkably thick beyond the middle. The larve are of
moderate length, more flattened than the grubs of the other Capri-
corn-beetles, have a very broad and horny head, small but power-
ful jaws, and are provided with six extremely small legs. ‘They
undermine the bark, and perforate the wood in various directions,
often doing immense injury to the trees, and to new buildings, in
the lumber composing which they may happen to be concealed.
Their burrows are wide and not cylindrical, are very winding,
and are filled up with a kind of compact saw-dust as fast as the
insects advance. ‘The larva state is said to continue two years,
during which period the insects cast their skins several times.
COLEOPTERA. 83
The sides of the body in the pupa are thin-edged, and finely
notched, and the tail is forked.
One of the most common kinds of Callidium found here is a
flattish, rusty black beetle, with some downy whitish spots across
the middle of the wing-covers; the thorax is nearly circular, is
covered with fine whitish down, and has two elevated polished
black points upon it ; and the wing-covers are very coarsely punc-
tured. It measures from four tenths to three quarters of an inch
in length. This insect is the Callidium bajulus ; the second
name, meaning a porter, was given to it by Linneus on account
of the whitish patch which it bears on its back. It inhabits fir,
spruce, and hemlock wood and lumber, and may often be seen on
wooden buildings and fences in July and August. We are inform-
ed by Kirby and Spence that the grubs sometimes greatly injure
the wood-work of houses in London, piercing the rafters of the
roofs in every direction, and, when arrived at maturity, even pene-
trating through sheets of lead which covered the place of their
exit. One piece of lead, only eight inches long and four broad,
contained twelve oval holes made by these insects, and fragments
of the lead were found in their stomachs. As this insect is now
common in the maritime parts of the United States, it was prob-
ably first brought to this country by vessels from Europe.
The violet Callidium, Callidium viclaceum*, is of a Prussian
blue or violet color ; the thorax is transversely oval, and downy,
and sometimes has a greenish tinge ; and the wing-covers are
rough with thick irregular punctures. Its length varies from four
to six tenths of an inch. It may be found in great abundance on
piles of pine wood, from the middle of May to the first of June ;
and the larve and pup are often met with in splitting the wood.
They live mostly just under the bark, where their broad and wind-
ing tracks may be traced by the hardened saw-dust with which
they are crowded. Just before they are about to be transformed,
they bore into the solid wood to the depth of several inches.
They are said to be very injurious to the sapling pines in Maine.
Professor Peck supposed this species of Callidium to have been
introduced into Europe in timber exported from this country, as it
* Cerambyx violaceus of Linneus.
84 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
is found in most parts of that continent that have been much con-
nected with North America by navigation. It is somewhat re-
markable that Europe and America should have thus interchanged
the porter and violet Callidium, which, by means of shipping, have
now become common to the two continents.
From the regularity of its form, and the noble size it attains,
the sugar maple is accounted one of the most beautiful of our
forest-trees, and is esteemed as one of the most valuable, on ac-
count of its many useful properties. ‘T’his fine tree suffers much
from the attacks of borers, which in some cases produce its entire
destruction. We are indebted to the Rev. L. W. Leonard, of
Dublin, N. H., for the first account of the habits and transforma-
tions of these borers. In the summer of 1828, his attention was
called to some young maples, in Keene, which were in a lan-
guishing condition. He discovered the insect in its beetle state
under the loosened bark of one of the trees, and traced the recent
track of the larva three inches into the solid wood. In the course
of a few years, these trees, upon the cultivation of which much
care had been bestowed, were nearly destroyed by the borers.
The failure, from the same cause, of several other attempts to
raise the sugar maple, has since come to my knowledge. The
insects are changed to beetles and come out of the trunks of the
trees in July. In the vicinity of Boston, specimens have been
repeatedly taken, which were undoubtedly brought here in maple
logs from Maine. I regret that I have not been able to obtain a
larva of this insect for examination. ‘The beetle was first de-
scribed in 1824, in the Appendix to Keating’s ‘‘ Narrative of
Long’s Expedition”, by Mr. Say, who called it Clytus speciosus,
that is, the beautiful Clytus. It was afterwards inserted, and ac-
curately represented by the pencil of Lesueur, in Say’s ‘* Amer-
ican Entomology ”’, and, more recently, a description and figure of
it has appeared. in Griffith’s translation of Cuvier’s ‘¢ Animal
Kingdom”, under the name of Clytus Hayti. The beautiful
Clytus, like the other beetles of the genus to which it belongs, is
distinguished from a Callidium by its more convex form, its more
nearly globular thorax, which is neither flattened nor indented,
and by its more slender thighs. The head is yellow, with the
antenne and the eyes reddish black ; the thorax is black, with two
COLEOPTERA. 85
transverse yellow spots on each side ; the wing-covers, for about
two-thirds of their length, are black, the remaining third is yellow,
and they are ornamented with bands and spots arranged in the
following manner ; a yellow spot on each shoulder, a broad yel-
low curved band or arch, of which the yellow scutel forms the
key-stone, on the base of the wing-covers, behind this a zigzag
yellow band forming the letter W, across the middle another yel-
low band arching backwards, and on the yellow tip a curved band
and a spot of a black color ; the legs are yellow ; and the under-
side of the body is reddish yellow, variegated with brown. It is
the largest known species of Clytus, being from nine to eleven
tenths of an inch in length, and three or four tenths in breadth. It
lays its eggs on the trunk of the maple in July and August. The
grubs burrow into the bark as soon as they are hatched, and are
thus protected during the winter. In the spring they penetrate
deeper, and form, in the course of the summer, long and winding
galleries in the wood, up and down the trunk. In order to check
their devastations, they should be sought for in the spring, when
they will readily be detected by the saw-dust that they cast out of
their burrows ; and, by a judicious use of a knife and stiff wire,
they may be cut out or destroyed before they have gone deeply
into the wood.
Many kinds of Clytus frequent flowers, for the sake of the pol-
len, which they devour. During the month of September, the
painted Clytus, Clytus pictus,* is often seen in abundance, feed-
ing by day upon the blossoms of the golden-rod. If the trunks
of our common locust-tree, Robinia pseudacacia, are examined at
this time, a still greater number of these beetles will be found
upon them, and most often paired. The habits of this insect
seem to have been known, as long ago as the year 1771, to Dr.
John Reinhold Forster, who then described it under the name of
Leptura Robinia, the latter being derived from the tree which it
inhabits. Drury, however, had previously described and figured
it, under the specific name here adopted, which, having the prior-
ity, in point of time, over all the others that have been subse-
quently imposed, must be retained. ‘This Capricorn-beetle has
* Leptura picta, Drury ; Clytus flecuosus, Fabricius.
86 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
the form of the beautiful maple Clytus. It is velvet-black, and
ornamented with transverse yellow bands, of which there are
three on the head, four on the thorax, and six on the wing-covers,
the tips of which are also edged with yellow. The first and
second bands on each wing-cover are nearly straight ; the third
band forms a V, or, united with the opposite one, a W, as in the
spectosus ; the fourth is also angled, and runs upwards on the
inner margin of the wing-cover towards the scutel; the fifth is
broken or interrupted by a longitudinal elevated line; and the
sixth is arched, and consists of three little spots. The antenne
are dark brown; and the legs are rust-red. These insects vary
from six tenths to three quarters of an inch in length.
In the month of September these beetles gather on the locust-
trees, where they may be seen glittering in the sun-beams with
their gorgeous livery of black velvet and gold, coursing up and
down the trunks in pursuit of their mates, or to drive away their
rivals, and stopping every now and then to salute those they meet
with a rapid bowing of the shoulders, accompanied by a creaking
sound, indicative of recognition or defiance. Having paired, the
female, attended by her partner, creeps over the bark, searching
the crevices with her antenna, and dropping therein her snow-
white eggs, in clusters of seven or eight together, and at intervals
of five or six minutes, till her whole stock is safely stored. The
eggs are soon hatched, and the grubs immediately burrow into the
bark, devouring the soft inner substance that suffices for their
nourishment till the approach of winter, during which they remain
at rest in a torpid state. In the spring they bore through the sap-
wood, more or less deeply into the trunk, the general course of
their winding and irregular passages, being in an upward direction
from the place of their entrance. Fora time they cast their chips
out of their holes as fast as they are made, but after a while the
passage becomes clogged and the burrow more or less filled with
the coarse and fibrous fragments of wood, to get rid of which the
grubs are often obliged to open new holes through the bark. The
seat of their operations is known by the oozing of the sap and the
dropping of the saw-dust from the holes. ‘The bark around the
part attacked begins to swell, and in a few years the trunks and
limbs will become disfigured and weakened by large porous
%
COLEOPTERA. 87
tumors, caused by the efforts of the trees to repair the injuries
they have suffered. According to the observations of General
H. A. S. Dearborn, who has given an excellent account * of this
insect, the grubs attain their full size by the twentieth of July,
soon become pupe, and are changed to beetles and leave the trees
early in September. ‘Thus the existence of this species is limited
to one year.
White-washing, and covering the trunks of the trees with graft-
ing composition, may prevent the female from depositing her eggs
upon them ; but this practice cannot be carried to any great ex-
tent in plantations or large nurseries of the trees. Perhaps it will
be useful to head down young trees to the ground, with the view
of destroying the grubs contained in them, as well as to promote
a more vigorous growth. Much evil might be prevented by em-
ploying children to collect the beetles while in the act of providing
for the continuation of their kind. A common black bottle, con-
taining a little water, would be a suitable vessel to receive the
beetles as fast as they were gathered, and should be emptied into
the fire in order to destroy the insects. The gathering should be
begun as soon as the beetles first appear, and should be continued
as long as any are found on the trees, and furthermore should be
made a general business for several years in succession. I have
no doubt, should this be done, that, by devoting one hour every
day to this object, we may, in the course of a few years, rid our-
selves of this destructive insect.
The largest Capricorn-beetle, of the Cerambycian family, found
in New England, is the Lamia (Monohammus) titillator of Fabri-
cius, or the tickler, so named probably on account of the habit
which it has, in common with most of the Capricorn-beetles, of
gently touching now and then the surface on which it walks with
the tips of its long antenne. ‘Three or four of these beetles may
sometimes be seen together in June and July, on logs or on the
trunks of trees in the woods, the males paying their court to the
females, or contending with their rivals, waving their antenne, and
showing the eagerness of the contest or pursuit by their rapid
creaking sounds.
* Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and Journal, Vol. VI. p. 272.
88 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
The head of the Lamias is vertical or perpendicular; the an-
tenne of the males are much longer than the body, and taper to
the end ; the thorax is cylindrical before and behind, and is armed
on the middle of each side with a very large pointed wart or
tubercle ; the tips of the wing-covers are rounded ; and the fore-
legs are longer than the rest, with broad hairy soles in the males.
The titillator is of a brownish color, variegated or mottled
with spots, of gray, and the wing-covers, which are coarsely
punctured, have also several small tufted black spots upon them ;
the middle legs are armed with a small tooth on the upper edge ;
the antenne of the male are twice as long as the body, and those
of the other sex equal the body in length, which measures from
one inch and one eighth to one inch and one quarter. What kind
of tree the grub of this insect inhabits is unknown to me.
Trees of the poplar tribe, both in Kurope and America, are
subject to the attacks of certain kinds of borers, differing essen-
tially from all the foregoing when arrived at maturity. They be-
long to the genus Saperda. In the beetle state the head is ver-
tical, the antenne are about the length of the body in both sexes,
the thorax is cylindrical, smooth, and unarmed at the sides, and
the fore-legs are shorter than the others. Our largest kind is the
‘ Saperda calcarata of Say, or the spurred Saperda, so named be-
cause the tips of the wing-covers end with a little sharp point or
spur. It is covered all over with a short and close nap, which
gives it a fine blue-gray color, it is finely punctured with brown,
there are four ochre-yellow lines on the head, and three on the
top of the thorax, the scutel is also ochre-yellow, and there are
several irregular lines and spots of the same color on the wing-
covers. It is from one inch to an inch and a quarter in length.
This beetle closely resembles the European Saperda carcharias,
which inhabits the poplar ; and the grubs of our native species,
with those of the broad-necked Prionus, have almost entirely de-
stroyed the Lombardy poplar in this vicinity. They live also in
the trunks of our American poplars. They are of a yellowish
white color, except the upper part of the first segment, which is
dark buff. When fully grown they measure nearly two inches in
length. ‘The body is very thick, rather larger before than behind,
and consists of twelve segments separated from each other by
COLEOPTERA. 89
deep transverse furrows. ‘The first segment is broad, and slopes
obliquely downwards to the head ; the second is very narrow ; on
the upper and under sides of each of the following segments, from
the third to the tenth inclusive, there is a transverse oval space,
rendered rough like a rasp by minute projections. ‘These rasps
serve instead of legs, which are entirely wanting. ‘The beetles
may be found on the trunks and branches of the various kinds of
poplars, in August and September; they fly by night, and some-
times enter the open windows of houses in the evening.
The borers of the apple-tree have become notorious, throughout
the New England and Middle States, for their extensive ravages.
They are the larve of a beetle called Saperda bivittata by Mr.
Say, the two-striped, or the brown and white striped Saperda ;
the upper side of its body being marked with two longitudinal
white stripes between three of a light brown color, while the face,
the antenne, the under-side of the body, and the legs, are white.
This beetle varies in length from a little more than one half to
three quarters of an inch. It comes forth from the trunks of the
trees, in its perfected state, early in June, making its escape in the
night, during which time only it uses its ample wings in going
from tree to tree in search of companions and food. In the day-
time it keeps at rest among the leaves of the plants which it de#
vours. ‘The trees and shrubs principally attacked by this borer,
are the apple-tree, the quince, mountain ash, hawthorn and other
thorn bushes, the June-berry or shad-bush, and other kinds of
Amelanchier and Aronia. Our native thorns and Aronias are its
natural food ; for I have discovered the larve in the stems of
these shrubs, and have repeatedly found the beetles upon them,
eating the leaves, in June and July. It is in these months that the
eggs are deposited, being laid upon the bark near the root, during
the night. The larve hatched therefrom are fleshy whitish grubs,
nearly cylindrical, and tapering a little from the first ring to the
end of the body. ‘The head is small, horny, and brown; the
first ring is much larger than the others, the next two are very
short, and, with the first, are covered with punctures and very
minute hairs ; the following rings, to the tenth inclusive, are each
furnished, on the upper and under side, with two fleshy warts
situated close together, and destitute of the little rasp-like teeth,
12
90 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
that are usually found on the grubs of the other Capricorn-beetles ;
the eleventh and twelfth rings are very short ; no appearance of
legs can be seen, even with a magnifying glass of high power.
The grub, with its strong jaws, cuts a cylindrical passage through
the bark, and pushes its castings backwards out of the hole from
time to time, while it bores upwards into the wood. The larva
state continues two or three years, during which the borer will be
found to have penetrated eight or ten inches upwards in the trunk
of the tree, its burrow at the end approaching to, and being cov-
ered only by, the bark. Here its transformation takes place. The
pupa does not differ much from other pupe of beetles ; but it has
a transverse row of minute prickles on each of the rings of the
back, and several at the tip of the abdomen. These probably
assist the insect in its movements, when casting off its pupa-skin.
The final change occurs about the first of June, soon after which,
the beetle gnaws through the bark that covers the end of its bur-
row, and comes out of its place of confinement in the night.
Notwithstanding the pains that have been taken by some per-
sons to destroy and exterminate these pernicious borers, they
continue to reappear in our orchards and nurseries every season.
The reasons of this are to be found in the habits of the insects,
and in individual carelessness. Many orchards suffer deplorably
from the want of proper attention; the trees are permitted to
remain, year after year, without any pains being taken to destroy
the numerous and various insects that infest them ; old orchards,
especially, are neglected, and not only the rugged trunks of the
trees, but even a forest of unpruned suckers around them, are left
to the undisturbed possession and perpetual inheritance of the Sa-
perda. On the means that have been used to destroy this borer, a
few remarks only need to be made ; for it is evident that they can
be fully successful only when generally adopted. Killing it by a
wire thrust into the holes it has made, is one of the oldest, safest,
and most successful methods. Cutting out the grub, with a knife
or gouge, is the most common practice ; but it is feared that these
tools have sometimes been used without sufficient caution. some of the beetles were found
earth. ‘* After a fortnight or so,’
in the gambler. Hence there is no doubt that the former were the
larve he beetles, and that they undergo their transformations
in the ground. A good description of the larve, and a more full
account of their habits, seasons, and changes, are still wanted.
In England, where the ravages of the turnip flea-beetle have
attracted great attention, and have caused many and various ex-
periments to be tried with a view of checking them, it is thought
that ‘‘ the careful and systematic use of lime will obviate, in a
great degree, the danger which has been experienced’’ from this
insect. From this and other statements in favor of the use of
lime, there is good reason to hope that it will effectually protect
plants from the various kinds of flea-beetles, if dusted over them,
when wet with dew, in proper season. Watering plants with alka-
line solutions, it is said, will kill the insects without injuring the
plants. ‘The solution may be made by dissolving one pound of
hard soap in twelve gallons of the soap-suds left after washing.
This mixture should be applied twice a day with a water-pot.
Kollar very highly recommends watering or wetting the leaves of
plants with an infusion or tea of wormwood, which prevents the flea-
14
106 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
beetles from touching them. Perhaps a decoction of walnut-leaves
might be equally serviceable. Great numbers of the beetles may
be caught by the skilful use of a deep bag-net of muslin, which
should be swept over the plants infested by the beetles, after
which the latter may be easily destroyed. ‘This net cannot be
used with safety to catch the insects on very young plants, on
account of the risk of bruising or breaking their tender leaves.
The Chrysomelians, CHRYsoMELADA, properly so called, form
the third family of the tribe to which I have given the same name,
because these insects hold the chief place in it, in respect to size,
beauty, variety, and numbers. These leaf-beetles are mostly
broad oval, sometimes nearly hemispherical, in their form, or
very convex above and flat beneath. ‘The head is rather wide,
and not cencealed under the thorax. The latter is short, and
broad behind. ‘The antenne are about half the length of the
body, and slightly thickened td@rds the end, and arise @x the |
sides of the head, between the eyes and the corners of the mouth ;
being much further apart than those of the Galerucians and flea-
beetles. The legs are rather short, nearly equal in length, and the
hindmost thighs are not thicker than the others, and are fitted
for leaping. The colors of these beetles are often rich"@fd bril-
~ liant, among which blue and green, highly polished, and with a
golden or metallic lustre, are the most common tints. The larve
are soft-bodied, short, thick, and slug-shaped grubs, with six legs
before, and a prop-leg behind. They live exposed on the leaves of
plants, which they eat, and to which most of them fasten them-
selves by the tail, when about to be transformed. Some, how-
ever, go into the ground when about to change to pupe. Many
of these insects, both in the larva and beetle state, have been
found to be very injurious to vegetation in other countries ; but I
am not aware that any of them have proved seriously injurious to
cultivated or other valuable plants in this country. There are
~
some, it is true, which may hereafter increase so as to give us
much trouble, unless effectual means are taken to protect and
cherish their natural enemies, the birds.
The largest species in New England inhabits the common milk-
weed, or silk-weed (Asclepias Syriaca), upon which it may be
found, in some or all of its states, from the middle of June till
COLEOPTERA. 107
September. Its head, thorax, body beneath, antennw and legs
are deep blue, and its wing-covers orange, with three large black
spots upon them, namely, one on the shoulder, and another on the
tip of each, and the third across the base of both wing-covers.
Hence it was named Chrysomela trimaculata by Fabricius, or the
three-spotted Chrysomela. It is nearly three eighths of an inch
long, and almost hemispherical. Its larve and pupe are orange-
colored, spotted with black, and pass through their transformations
on the leaves of the Asclepias.
The most elegant of our Chrysomelians is the Chrysomela
scalaris of Leconte, literally the ladder Chrysomela. It is about
three tenths of an inch long, and of a narrower and more regularly
oval shape than the preceding. The head, thorax, and under-side
of its body are dark green, the wing-covers silvery white, orna-
mented with small green spots on the sides, and a broad jagged
stripe Wong the suture or inner @ges ; the antenne and legs are
rust-red ; and the wings are rose-colored. It is a most beautiful
object when flying, with its silvery wing-covers, embossed with
green, raised up, and its rose-red wings spread out beneath them.
wo inhabit the lime or linden (Ti/ia Americana), and
the e
and a second -brood of them in September and October. They
on which they may be found in April, May, and June,
pass the winter in holes, and under leaves and moss. ‘The trees
on which they live are sometimes a good deal injured by them and
by their larve. The latter are hatched from eggs laid by the
beetles on the leaves in the spring, and come to their growth
towards the end of June. ‘They are then about six tenths of an
inch long, of a white color, with a black line along the top of the
back, and a row of small square black spots on each side of the
body ; the head is horny and of an ochre-yellow color. Like the
grubs of the preceding species, these are short, and very thick,
the back arching upwards very much in the middle. I believe
that they go into the ground to turn to pupe. Should they be-
come so numerous as seriously to injure the lime and elm trees, it
may be found useful to throw decoctions of tobacco or of walnut
leaves on the trees by means of a garden or fire engine, a method
which has been employed with good effect for the destruction of
the larve a Galeruca Calmariensis.
108 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
The most common leaf-beetle of the family under consideration
is the blue-winged Chrysomela, or Chrysomela ceruleipennis of
Say, an insect hardly distinct from the Kuropean Chrysomela
Polygon, and like the latter it lives in great numbers on the com-
mon knot-grass (Polygonum aviculare), which it completely strips
of its leaves two or three times in the course of the summer. ‘This
little beetle is about three twentieths of an inch long. Its head,
wing-covers, and body beneath are*dark blue ; its thorax and legs
are dull orange-red ; the upper side of its abdomen is also orange-
colored ; and the antenne and feet are blackish. ‘The females
have a very odd appearance before they have laid their eggs,
their abdomen being enormously swelled out like a large orange-
colored ball, which makes it very difficult for them to move
about. I have found these insects on the knot-grass in every
month from April to September inclusive. ‘The larve eat the
leaves cf the same plant.
Having described the largest, the most elegant, and the most
common of our Chrysomelians, I must omit all the rest, except
the most splendid, which was called Eumolpus auratus by Fabri-
clus, that is, the gilde | Eumolpus. Itis of a brilliant go reen
color above, and of a deep purplish green below ; ee are
also purple-green ; but the feet and the antennz are blackish. The
thorax is narrower behind than the wing-covers, and the rest of the
body is more oblong oval than in the foregoing Chrysomelians.
It is about three eighths of an inch long. ‘This splendid beetle
may be found in considerable numbers on the leaves of the dog’s-
bane (Apocynum Androsemifolium), which it devours, dle the
months of July and August. The larve are unknown to me. ~
The fourth family of the leaf-eating Chrysomelians consists of
the Cryptocephalians (CRYPTOCEPHALIDE), so named from the
principal genus Cryptocephalus, a word signifying concealed head.
These insects somewhat resemble the beetles of the preceding
family ; but they are of a more cylindrical form, and the head is
bent down, and nearly concealed in the forepart of the thorax.
Their larve are short, cylindrical, whitish grubs, which eat the
leaves of plants. Each one makes for itself a little cylindrical or
egg-shaped case, of a substance sometimes resembling clay, and
sometimes like horn, with an opening at one end, within which
.
e .
COLEOPTERA. . 109
the grub lives, putting out its head and fore-legs when it wishes to
eat or to move. When it is fully grown, it stops up the open end
of its case, and changes to a pupa, and afterwards to a beetle
within it, and then gnaws a hole through the case, in order to
escape. As none of these insects have been observed to do
much injury to plants in this country, I shall state nothing more
respecting them, than that Clythra dominicana inhabits the su-
mach, ©. quacriguttata oak-trees, Chlamys gibbosa low whortle-
berry bushes, Cryptocephalus luridus the wild indigo-bush, and
most of the other species may be found on different kinds of oaks.
Although the blistering-beetles, or Cantharides (CANTHARI-
pip#), have been enumerated among the insects directly benefi-
cial to man, on account of the important use made of them in
medical practice, yet it must be admitted that they are often very
injurious to vegetation. ‘The green Cantharides, or Spanish-flies,
as they are commonly called, are found in the South of Europe,
and particularly in Spain and Italy, where they are collected in
great quantities for exportation. In these countries they some-
times appear in immense swarms, on the privet, lilac, and ash ; so
that the limbs of these plants bend under their weight, and are en-
tirely stripped of their foliage by these leaf-eating beetles. In
like manner our native Cantharides devour the leaves of plants,
and sometimes prove very destructive to them.
Latreille, and other naturalists, who follow his system, arrange
these insects between the beetles having five-jointed feet, and
those which have only four joints in the same members. As they
were omitted in the place assigned to them by these naturalists,
they may, without impropriety, come under consideration at the
end of the leaf-eating beetles, since, according to Mr. Kirby, and
some others, they seem to lead to the insects in the order Orthop-
tera, which follows. The Cantharides are distinguished from all
the preceding insects by their feet, the hindmost pair of which
have only four joints, while the first and middle pairs are five-
jointed. In this respect they agree with many other beetles, such
as clocks or darkling-beetles, meal-beetles, some of the mush-
110 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
room-beetles, flat bark-beetles, and the like, with which they
form a large and distinct section of Coleopterous insects. ‘The
following are the most striking peculiarities of the family to which
the blistering-beetles belong. The head is broad and nearly heart-
shaped, and it is joined to the thorax by a narrow neck. The
antenne are rather long and tapering, sometimes knotted in the
middle, particularly in the males. The thorax varies in form, but
is generally much narrower than the wing-covers. ‘The latter are
soft and flexible, more or less bent down at the sides of the body,
usually long and narrow, sometimes short and overlapping on
their inner edges. ‘The legs are long and slender ; the soles of
the feet are not broad, and are not cushioned beneath; and the
claws are split to the bottom, or double, so that there appear to be
four claws to each foot. The body is quite soft, and when
handled, a yellowish fluid, of a disagreeable smell, comes out of the
joints. ‘These beetles are timid insects, and when alarmed they
draw up their legs and feign themselves dead. Nearly all of them
have the power of raising blisters when applied to the skin, and
they retain it even when dead and perfectly dry. It is chiefly
this property that renders them valuable to physicians. Four of
our native Cantharides have been thus successfully employed, and
are found to be as powerful in their effects as the imported spe-
cies. For further particulars relative to their use, the reader is
referred to my account of them published in 1824, in the first
volume of ‘* The Boston Journal of Philosophy, and the Arts, ”’
and in the thirteenth volume of ‘‘ The New England Medical and
Surgical Journal.”
Occasionally potato-vines are very much infested by two or
three kinds of Cantharides, swarms of which attack and destroy
the leaves during midsummer. One of these kinds has thereby
obtained the name of the potato-fly. It is the Cantharis vittata*,
or striped Cantharis. It is of a dull tawny yellow or light yel-
lowish red color above, with two black spots on the head, and
two black stripes on the thorax and on each of the wing-covers.
The under-side of the body, the legs, and the antennz are black,
and covered with a grayish down. Its length is from five to six
* Lytta vittata, Fabricius.
COLEOPTERA. 111
tenths of an inch. In this and the three following species the tho-
rax is very much narrowed before, and the wing-covers are long
and narrow, and cover the whole of the back. The striped Can-
tharis is comparatively rare in New England ; but in the Middle
States it often appears in great numbers, and does much mischief
in potato-fields and gardens, eating up not only the leaves of the
potato, but those of many other vegetables. The habits of this
kind of Cantharis are similar to those of the following species.
There is a large blistering-beetle which is very common on
the virgin’s bower (Clematis Virginiana), a trailing plant, which
grows wild in the fields, and is often cultivated for covering
arbors. I have sometimes seen this plant completely stripped of
its leaves by these insects, during the month of August. They
are very shy, and when disturbed fall immediately from the leaves,
and attempt to conceal themselves among the grass. They most
commonly resort to the low branches of the Clematis, or those
that trail upon the ground, and more rarely attack the upper parts
of the vine. They also eat the leaves of various kinds of Ranun-
culus or buttercups, and, in the Middle and Southern States, those
of Clematis viorna and crispa. 'This beetle is the Cantharis mar-
ginata of Olivier, or margined Cantharis. It measures six or seven
tenths of an inch in length. Its head and thorax are thickly cov-
ered with short gray down, and have a black spot on the upper side
of each; the wing-covers are black, with a very narrow gray edg-
ing ; and the under-side of the body and the legs are also gray.
The most destructive kind of Cantharis, found in Massachu-
setts, is of a more slender form than the preceding, and measures
only from five and a half to six tenths of an inch in length. — Its
antenne and feet are black, and all the rest of its body is ashen
gray, being thickly covered with a very short down of that color.
Hence it is called Cantharis cinerea*, or the ash-colored Can-
tharis. When the insect is rubbed, the ash-colored substance
comes off, leaving the surface black. It begins to appear in gar-
dens about the twentieth of June, and is very fond of the leaves of
the English bean, which it sometimes entirely destroys. It is
also occasionally found in considerable numbers on potato-vines ;
* Lytta cinerea, Fabricius.
112 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it has repeatedly appeared in
great profusion upon hedges of the honey-locust, which have been
entirely stripped of foliage by these voracious insects. ‘They are
also found on the wild indigo-weed. In the night, and in rainy
weather, they descend from the plants, and burrow in the ground,
or under leaves and tufts of grass. hither also they retire for |
shelter during the heat of the day, being most actively engaged in
eating in the morning and evening. About the first of August
they go into the ground and lay their eggs, and these are hatched
in the course of one month. The larve are slender, somewhat
flattened grubs, of a yellowish color, banded with black, with a
small reddish head, and six legs. These grubs are very active in
their motions, and appear to live upon fine roots in the ground ;
but I have not been able to keep them till they arrived at matu-
rity, and therefore know nothing further of their history. ~
About the middle of August, and during the rest of this and the
following month, a jet-black Cantharis may be seen on potato-
vines, and also on the blossoms and leaves of various kinds of
golden-rod, particularly the tall golden-rod (Solidago altissima),
which seems to be its favorite food. In some places it is as plen-
tiful in potato-fields as the striped and the margined Cantharis,
and by its serious ravages has often excited attention. These
three kinds, in fact, are often confounded under the common
name of potato-flies ; and it is still more remarkable, that they are
collected for medical use, and are sold in our shops by the name
of Cantharis vittata, without a suspicion of their being distinct
from each other. The black Cantharis, or Cantharis atratat, is
totally black, without bands or spots, and measures from four
tenths to half of an inch in length. I have repeatedly taken these
insects, in considerable quantities, by brushing or shaking them
from the potato-vines into a broad tin pan, from which they were
emptied into a covered pail containing a little water in it, which,
by wetting their wings, prevented their flying out when the pail
was uncovered. The same method may be employed for taking
the other kinds of Camntharides, when they become troublesome
and destructive from their numbers; or they may be caught by
gently sweeping the plants they frequent with a deep muslin bag-
+ Lytta atrata, Fabricius.
COLEOPTERA. 113
net. They should be killed by throwing them into scalding
water, for one or two minutes, after which they may be spread
out on sheets of paper to dry, and may be made profitable by sell-
ing them to the apothecaries for medical use.
There are some blistering-beetles, belonging to another genus,
which seem deserving of a passing notice, not on account of any
great injury committed by them, but because they can be used in
medicine like the foregoing, and are considered by some natural-
ists as forming one of the links connecting the orders Coleoptera
and Orthoptera together. These insects belong to the genus
Meloe, so named, it is supposed, because they are of a black, or
deep blue-black color. They are called oil-beetles, in England,
on account of the yellowish liquid which oozes from their joints
in large drops when they are handled. ‘Their head is large, heart-
shaped, and bent down, as in the other blistering-beetles. Their
thorax is narrowed behind, and very small in proportion to the
rest of the body. ‘The latter is egg-shaped, pointed behind, and
so enormously large, that it drags on the ground when the beetle
attempts to walk. ‘I'he wings are wanting, and of course these
insects are unable to fly, although they have a pair of very short
oval wing-covers, which overlap on their inner edges, and do not
cover more than one third of the abdomen. These beetles eat
the leaves of various kinds of buttercups.
Our common species is the Meloe angusticollis of Say, or
narrow-necked oil-beetle. It is of a dark indigo-blue color ; the
thorax is very narrow, and the antenne of the male are curiously
twisted and knotted in the middle. It measures from eight tenths
of an inch to one inch in length. It is very common on butter-
cups in the autumn, and I have also found it eating the leaves of
potato-vines.
The foregoing insects are but a small number of those, belong-
ing to the order Coleoptera, which are injurious to vegetation.
Those only have been selected that are the most remarkable for
their ravages, or would best serve to illustrate the families and
genera to which they belong. The orders Orthoptera, Hemip-
tera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera, remain to be
treated in the same way, in carrying out the plan upon which this
treatise has been begun, and to which it is limited.
15
114 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
ORTHOPTERA.
Earwies. Cocxroacurs. — Mantes, or Soorusayers. — WALKING-LEAVES.
WaLkING-sTicks, oR Spectres. — Moxe-Cricket. Fretp Crickets. Cuiims-
inc Cricket. CucumMBEeR Skippers. AWL-BEARER, OR WINGLESS-CRICKET.
Grassuorprers. Kary-pip. Locusts.
Tue destructive insects popularly known in this country by the
name of grasshoppers, but which, in our version of the Bible,
and in other works in the English language, are called locusts,
have, from a period of very high antiquity, attracted the attention
of mankind by their extensive and lamentable ravages. It should
here be remarked, that in America the name of locust is very
improperly given to the Cicada of the ancients, or the harvest-fly
of English writers, some kinds of which will be the subject of
future remark in this essay. The name of locust will here be
restricted to certain kinds of grasshoppers ; while the popularly
named locust, which, according to common belief, appears only
once in seventeen years, must drop this name and take the more
correct one of Cicada or harvest-fly. The very frequent mis-
application of names, by persons unacquainted with natural his-
tory, is one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of science,
and shows how necessary it is that things should be called by
their right names, if the observations communicated respecting
them are to be of any service. Every intelligent farmer is capa-
ble of becoming a good observer, and of making valuable dis-
coveries in natural history ; but if he be ignorant of the proper
names of the objects examined, or if he give to them names,
which previously have been applied by other persons to entirely
different objects, he will fail to make the result of his observa-
tions intelligible and useful to the community.
The insects which I here call locusts, together with other
grasshoppers, earwigs, crickets, spectres or walking-sticks, and
walking-leaves, soothsayers, cockroaches, &c., belong to an order
called OrtuHorTerRA, literally straight-wings ; for their wings,
when not in use, are folded lengthwise in narrow plaits like a fan,
and are laid straight along the top or sides of the back. They
ORTHOPTERA. 115
are also covered by a pair of thicker wing-like members, which,
in the locusts and grasshoppers, are long and narrow, and lie
lengthwise on the sides of the body, sloping outwards on each
side like the roof of a house ; in the cockroaches, these upper
wings or wing-covers, are broader, almost oval, and lie horizon-
tally on the top of the back, overlapping on their inner edges ;
and in the crickets, the wing-covers, when closed, are placed like
those of cockroaches, but have a narrow outer border, which is
folded perpendicularly downwards so as to cover the sides of the
body also.
All the Orthopterous insects are provided with transversely
movable jaws, more or less like those of beetles, but they do not
undergo a complete transformation in coming to maturity. ‘The
young, in fact, often present a close resemblance to the adult in-
sects in form, and differ from them chiefly in wanting wings.
They move about and feed precisely like their parents, but change
their skins repeatedly before they come to their full size. The
second stage in the progress of the Orthopterous insects to ma-
turity, is not, like that of beetles, a state of inactivity and rest, in
which the insect loses the grub-like or larva form which it had
when hatched from the egg, and becomes a pupa or chrysalis,
more nearly resembling the form of a beetle, but soft, whitish,
and with its undeveloped wings and limbs incased in a thin trans-
parent skin which impedes all motion. On the contrary, the Or-
thoptera, in the pupa state, do not differ from the young and
from the old insects, except in having the rudiments of wings and
wing-covers projecting, like little scales, from the back near the
thorax. These pup are active and voracious, and increase
greatly in size, which is not the case with the insects that are sub-
ject to a complete transformation, for such never eat or grow in
the pupa state. When fully grown, they cast off their skins for
the sixth or last time, and then appear in the adult or perfect state,
fully provided with all their members, with the exception of a few
kinds which remain wingless throughout their whole lives. The
slight changes to which the Orthoptera are subject, consist of
nothing more than a successive series of moultings, during which
their wings are gradually developed. ‘These changes may re-
ceive the name of imperfect or incomplete transformation, in con-
116 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
tradistinction to the far greater changes exhibited by those insects
which pass through a complete transformation in their progress to
maturity.
Cockroaches are general feeders, and nothing comes amiss to
them, whether of vegetable or animal nature ; the Mantes or
soothsayers are predaceous and carnivorous, devouring weaker
insects, and even those of their own kind occasionally ; but by
far the greater part of the Orthopterous insects subsist on vegeta-
ble food, grass, flowers, fruits, the leaves, and even the bark of
trees : whence it follows, in connexion with their considerable
size, their great voracity, and the immense troops or swarms in
which they too often appear, that they are capable of doing great
injury to vegetation.
The Orthoptera may be divided into four large groups :
1. Runners (Orthoptera cursoria*), including earwigs and
cockroaches, with all the legs fitted for rapid motion 5
2. GrasreErs (Orthoptera raptoria), such as the Mantes, or
soothsayers, with the shanks of the fore-legs capable of being
doubled upon the under-side of the thigh, which, moreover, is
armed with teeth, and thus forms an instrument for seizing and
holding their prey ;
3. WaLkers (Orthoptera ambulatoria), like the spectres or
walking-sticks, having weak and slender legs, which do not admit
of rapid motion ; and
4. Jumpers (Orthoptera saltatoria), such as crickets, grass-
hoppers, and locusts, in which the thighs of the hind-legs are
much larger than the others, and are filled and moved with power-
ful muscles, which enable these insects to leap with facility.
I. RUNNERS. (Orthoptera Cursoria.)
In English works on gardening, earwigs are reckoned among
obnoxious insects, various remedies are suggested to banish them
from the garden, and even traps and other devices are described
for capturing and destroying them. These little insects have got
a bad name, whether deservedly or not, has never appeared ; and,
* These are the four divisions proposed by Mr. Westwood in his “ Introdue-
tion,’ who, however, applies to them their Latin names only.
ORTHOPTERA. 117
since they already lie under reproach, they seem to have kept up
their claim to it, by turning pilferers to such an extent, that it has
become necessary to set a vigilant watch on their proceedings.
They are particularly fond of taking up their abode in melon and
hot-bed frames, where they find a congenial warmth, and an abun-
dance of tender and juicy food; they are accused, and not
without reason, of getting the first taste of ripe fruit; they seem
also to be quite as well pleased with beautiful, rare, and odorous
flowers, as the most enthusiastic florist, but show their admiration
by making a meal of them. ‘They have a rather long and some-
what flattened body, which is armed at the hinder end with a pair
of slender sharp-pointed blades, opening and shutting horizontally
like scissors, or like a pair of nippers, which suggested the name
of Forficula, literally little nippers, applied to them by scientific
writers. Although no well authenticated instances are on record
of their entering the human ear, yet, during the day-time, they
creep into all kinds of crevices for the sake of concealment, and
come out to feed chiefly by night. ‘They seem to be as timid as
hares, and when disturbed run into the nearest hole, satisfied, like
the quadrupeds above named, if they can get their heads under
cover, and thus exclude the sight of danger, even when their
bodies are fully exposed. Hence, it often happens that they will
be found with their heads buried in the bottom of flowers, their
forked tails sticking up among the stamens and pistils, so that they
might escape the notice of any one but a botanist or an entomolo-
gist. [hey are very injurious to flowers, eating holes in the
blossoms, and otherwise disfiguring them, particularly the dahlia ;
and Mouffet* says that ‘‘ ox-hoofs, hog’s hoofs, or old cast things
are used as traps for them by the English women, who hate them
exceedingly, because of clove-gilliflowers that they eat and spoyl.”
It is common with English gardeners to hang up, among the flow-
ers and fruit-trees subject to their attacks, pieces of hollow reeds,
lobster claws, and the like, which offer enticing places of re-
treat for these insects on the approach of daylight, and by means
thereof great numbers of them are obtained in the morning. The
little creeping animal, with numerous legs, commonly, but errone-
* Quoted from Westwood’s “ Introduction.”
118 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
ously called earwig in America, is not an insect ; but of the true
earwig we have several species, though they are by no means
common, and certainly never appear in such numbers as to prove
seriously injurious to vegetation. Nevertheless, it seemed well to
give to this kind of insect a passing notice in its proper place
among the Orthoptera, were it only for its notoriety in other
countries.
Of cockroaches ( Blatta) we have also several kinds ; those which
are indigenous I believe are found exclusively in woods, under stones
and leaves, while the others, and particularly the Oriental cock-
roach ( Blatta orientalis), which is supposed to have originated in
Asia, whence it has spread to Europe, and thence to America, and
has multiplied and become established in most of our maritime
commercial towns, are domestic species, and are found in houses,
under kitchen hearths, about ovens, and in dark and warm closets,
whence they issue at night, and prowl about in search of food.
But, as these disgusting and ill-smelling insects confine themselves
to our dwellings, and do not visit our gardens and fields, they will
require no further remarks than the mention of a method which
has sometimes been found useful in destroying them. Mix to-
gether a table-spoon full of red-lead and of Indian meal with mo-
lasses enough to make a thick batter, and place the mixture at
night on a plate or piece of board in the closets or on the hearths
frequented by the cockroaches. ‘They will eat it and become
poisoned thereby. ‘The dose is to be repeated for several nights
in succession.
II. GRASPERS. (Orthoptera raptoria.)
These, which consist of the Mantes, called praying-mantes and
soothsayers, from their singular attitudes and motions, and camel-
crickets, from the great length of the neck, are chiefly tropical
insects, though some of them are occasionally found in this
country. Moreover, they are exclusively predaceous insects,
seizing, with their singular fore-legs, caterpillars, and other weaker
insects which they devour. They are, therefore, to be enumerated
among the insects that are beneficial to mankind, by keeping in
check those that subsist on vegetable food.
ORTHOPTERA. 119
III. WALKERS. (Orthoptera ambulatoria.)
To this, division belong various insects, mostly found in warm
climates, and displaying the most extraordinary forms. Some of
them are furnished with wings, which, by their shape, and the
branching veins with which they are covered, exactly represent
leaves, either green, or dry and withered ; such are the walking-
leaves, as they are called, (Phyllium pulchrifolium, siccifolium,
&c.). Others are wingless, of a long and cylindrical shape, re-
sembling a stick with the bark on it, while the slender legs, stand-
ing out on each side, give to these insects almost precisely the
appearance of a little branching twig, whence is derived the name
of walking-sticks, generally applied to them. ‘The South Amer-
ican Bacteria arumatia, rubispinosa, and phyllina, and two spe-
cies of Diapheromera ? described and figured in Say’s ‘‘ American
Entomology,”’ under the names of Spectrum femoratum and bi-
vittatum, are of the latter description. ‘These insects are very
sluggish and inactive, are found among trees and bushes, on .
which they often remain motionless for a long time, or walk slowly
over the leaves and young shoots, which are their appropriate food.
The American species are not so numerous, and have not
proved so injurious as particularly to attract attention.
IV. JUMPERS. (Orthoptera saltatoria.)
These are by far the most abundant and prolific, and the most
destructive of the Orthopterous insects. They were all included
by Linneus in his great genus Gryllus, in separate divisions, how-
ever, three of which correspond to the families Mchetade,*
Grylliadg,} and Locustiade,t in my ‘‘ Catalogue of the Insects
of Massachusetts,’ and may retain the synonymous English
names of Crickets, Grasshoppers, and Locusts. These three
families may thus be distinguished from each other.
1. Crickets (AcHETAD#); with the wing-covers horizontal, and
furnished with a narrow, deflexed outer border ; antenne long and
* Gryllus Acheta, Linneus. t Gryllus Tettigonia, L.
t Gryllus Locusta, L.
120 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
tapering ; feet with not more than three joints ; two tapering,
downy bristles at the end of the body, between which, in most of
the females, is a long spear-pointed piercer.
2. Grasshoppers (GRYLLID#) ; with the wing-covers sloping
downwards at the sides of the body, or roofed, and not bordered ;
antenne long and tapering ; feet with four joints ; end of the
body, in the females, with a projecting sword or sabre-shaped
piercer.
3. Locusts (Locustap#) ; with the wing-covers roofed, and
not bordered ; antenne rather short, and in general not tapering at
the end ; feet with only three joints ; female without a projecting
piercer.
1. Crickets. (Achetade.)
There may sometimes be seen in moist and soft ground, par-
ticularly around ponds, little ridges or hills of loose fresh earth,
smaller than those which-are formed by moles. ‘They cover little
burrows, that usually terminate beneath a stone or clod of turf.
These burrows are made and inhabited by mole-crickets, which
are among the most extraordinary of the cricket kind. The
common mole-cricket of this country is, when fully grown, about
one inch and a quarter in length, of a light bay or fawn color, and
covered with a very short and velvet-like down. The wing-
covers are not half the length of the abdomen, and the wings are
also short, their tips, when folded, extending only about one eighth
of an inch beyond the wing-covers. ‘The fore-legs are admirably
adapted for digging, being very short, broad, and strong ; and the
shanks, which are excessively broad, flat, and three-sided, have
the lower side divided by deep notches into four finger-like pro-
jections, that give to this part very much the appearanc and the
power of the hand of a mole. From this similarity i in structure,
and from its burrowing habits, this insect receives its scientific
name of Gryllotalpa, derived from Gryllus, the ancient name of
the cricket, and Talpa, a mole ; and our common species has the
additional name of brevipennis,* or short-winged, to distinguish it
from the European species, which has much longer wings. Mole-
* Serville. ‘‘ Orthoptéres,” p. 308.
ORTHOPTERA. 121
crickets avoid the light of day, and are active chiefly during the
night. They live on the tender roots of plants, and in Europe,
where they infest moist gardens and meadows, they often do great
injury by burrowing under the turf, and cutting off the roots of
the grass, and by undermining and destroying, in this way, some-
times whole beds of cabbages, beans, and flowers. In the West
Indies, extensive ravages have been committed in the plantations
of the sugar-cane, by another species, Gryllotalpa didactyla, which
has only two finger-like projections on the shin. ‘The mole-
cricket of Europe lays from two to three hundred eggs, and the
young do not come to maturity till the third year ; circumstances
both contributing greatly to increase the ravages of these insects.
It is observed, that, in proportion as cultivation is extended,
destructive insects multiply, and their depredations become more
serious. We may, therefore, in process of time, find mole-
crickets in this country quite as much a pest as they are in Eu-
rope, although their depredations have hitherto been limited to so
small an extent as not to have attracted much notice. Should
it hereafter become necessary to employ means for checking
them, poisoning might be tried, such as placing, in the vicinity of
their burrows, grated carrots or potatoes mixed with arsenic. It
is well known that swine will eat almost all kinds of insects, and
that they are very sagacious in rooting them out of the ground.
They might, therefore, be employed with advantage to destroy
these and other noxious insects, if other means should fail.
We have no house-crickets in America ; our species inhabit
gardens and fields, and enter our houses only by accident.
Crickets are, in great measure, nocturnal and solitary insects,
concealing themselves by day, and coming from their retreats to
seek the d and their mates by night. ‘There are some spe-
cies, howewer, which differ greatly from the others in their social
habits. ‘These are not unfrequently seen during the daytime in
great numbers in paths, and by the road-side ; but the other kinds
rarely expose themselves to the light of day, and their music is
heard only at night. With crickets, as with grasshoppers, lo-
custs, and harvest-flies, the males only are musical ; for the fe-
males are not provided with the instruments from which the sounds
emitted by these different insects are produced. In the male
16
122 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
cricket these make a part of the wing-covers, the horizontal and
overlapping portion of which, near the thorax, is convex, and
marked with large, strong, and irregularly curved veins. When
the cricket shrills (we cannot say sings, for he has no vocal or-
gans), he raises the wing-covers a little, and shuffles them together
lengthwise, so that the projecting veins of one are made to grate
against those of the other. ‘The English name cricket, and the
French cri-cri, are evidently derived from the creaking sounds of
these insects. Mr. White, of Selborne, says that ‘*‘ the shrilling
of the field-cricket, though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously
delights some hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer
ideas of every thing that is rural, verdurous, and joyous”; sen-
timents in which few persons, if any, in America will participate ;
for with us the creaking of crickets does not begin till summer is
gone, and the continued and monotonous sounds, which they keep
up during the whole night, so Jong as autumn lasts, are both weari-
some and sad. Where crickets abound, they do great injury to
vegetation, eating the most tender parts of plants, and even de-
vouring fruits and roots, whenever they can get them. Melons,
squashes, and even potatoes are often eaten by them, and the quan-
tity of grass that they destroy must be great, from the immense
numbers of these insects which are sometimes seen in our meadows
and fields. ‘They may be poisoned in the same way as mole-
crickets. Crickets are not entirely confined to a vegetable diet ;
they devour other insects whenever they meet with and can over-
power them. ‘They deposit their eggs, which are numerous, in
the ground, making holes for their reception with their long, spear-
pointed piercers. The eggs are laid in the autumn, and do not
appear to be hatched till the ensuing summer. ‘The old insects,
for the most part, die on the approach of cold went a few
survive the winter, by sheltering themselves under S, Or in
holes secure from the access of water.
The scientific name of the genus that includes the cricket is
Acheta, and our common species is the Acheta abbreviata, so
named from the shortness of its wings, which do not extend
beyond the wing-covers. It is about three quarters of an inch in
length, of a black color, with a brownish tinge at the base of the
wing-covers, and a pale line on each side above the deflexed bor-
ORTHOPTERA. 123
der. The pale line is most distinct in the female, and is often-
times entirely wanting in the male.
We have another species with very short or abortive wings ; it is
entirely of a black color, and measures six tenths of an inch in
length from the head to the end of the body. It may be called
Acheta nigra, the black cricket.
A third species, differing from these two in being entirely
destitute of wings, and in having the wing-covers proportionally
much shorter, and the last joint of the feelers (palpi) almost
twice the length of the preceding joint, is furthermore dis-
tinguished from them by its greatly inferior size, and its dif-
ferent coloring. It measures from three to above four tenths
of an inch in length, and varies in color from dusky brown to
rusty black, the wing-covers and hindmost thighs being always
somewhat lighter. In the brownish colored varieties three longi-
tudinal black lines are distinctly visible on the top of the head,
and a black line on each side of the thorax, which is continued
along the sides of the wing-covers to their tips. This black line
on the wing-covers is never wanting, even in the darkest varieties.
The hindmost thighs have, on the outside, three rows of short
oblique black lines, presenting somewhat of a twilled appearance.
This is one of the social species, which, associated together in
great swarms, and feeding in common, frequent our meadows and
road-sides, and, so far from avoiding the light of day, seem to be
quite as fond of it as others are of darkness. It may be called
Acheta vittata*, the striped cricket.
These kinds of crickets live upon the ground, and among the
grass and low herbage ; but there is another kind which inhabits
the stems and branches of shrubs and trees, concealing itself during
the toy gf amon the leaves, or in the flowers of these plants.
Some la grape-vines, which were trained against one side of
my house, were much resorted to by these delicate and noisy little
crickets. ‘The males begin to be heard about the middle of Au-
gust, and do not leave us until after the middle of September.
Their shrilling is excessively loud, and is produced, like that of
other crickets, by the rubbing of one wing-cover against the other ;
* It belongs to M. Serville’s new genus Vemobius.
124 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
but they generally raise their wing-covers much higher than other
crickets do while they are playing. ‘These wing-covers, in the
males, are also very large, and as long as the wings ; they are ex-
ceedingly thin, and perfectly transparent, and have the horizontal
portion divided into four unequal parts by three oblique raised
lines, two of which are parallel and form an angle with the anterior
line. The antenne and legs are both very long and slender, the
hinder thighs being much smaller in proportion than those of other
crickets, and the hindmost feet have four instead of three joints.
The two bristle-formed appendages at the end of the body are as
long as the piercer, and the latter is only about half the length of
the body, while, in the ground-crickets, the piercer is usually
as long as the body or longer. ‘These insects have, therefore,
been separated from the other crickets under the generical name
of (Ecanthus, a word which means inhabiting flowers. They
may be called climbing-crickets, from their habit of mounting upon
plants and dwelling among the leaves and flowers. According to
M. Salvi* the female makes several perforations in the tender
stems of plants, and in each perforation thrusts two eggs quite to
the pith. The eggs are hatched about midsummer, and the young
immediately issue from their nests and conceal themselves among
the thickest foliage of the plant. When arrived at maturity the
males begin their nocturnal serenade at the approach of twilight,
and continue it, with little or no intermission till the dawn of day.
Should one of these little musicians get admission to the chamber,
his incessant and loud shrilling will effectually banish sleep. Of
three species which inhabit the United States, one only is found
in Massachusetts. It is the Gcanthus niveus, or white climbing-
cricket. The male is ivory-white, with the upper side of the first
joint of the antenne, and the head between the eyes, & ochre-
yellow color ; there is a minute black dot on the un®fsides of
the first and second joints of the antenne ; and, in some individu-
als, the extremities of the feet, and the under-sides of the hind-
most thighs, are ochre-yellow. The body is about half an inch
long, exclusive of the wing-covers. The female is usually rather
longer, but the wing-covers are much narrower than those of the
* Memorie intorno le Locuste grillajole. 8vo. Verona: 1750.
ORTHOPTERA. 125
male, and there is a great diversity of coloring in this sex ; the
body being sometimes almost white, or pale greenish yellow, or
dusky, and blackish beneath. ‘There are three dusky stripes on
the head and thorax, and the legs, antenne, and piercer are more
or less dusky or blackish. ‘The wing-covers and wings are
yellowish white, sometimes with a tinge of green, and the wings
are rather longer than the covers.
In Europe there are found, in ant-hills, little jumping insects
about three twentieths of an inch in length, of a brownish color,
with an egg-shaped body, entirely destitute of wings and wing-
covers. ‘I'he head is very small, and nearly concealed under the
forepart of the body ; the hindmost thighs are remarkably thick ;
and the female has a very short piercer, not exceeding the terminal
appendages in length. ‘These insects belong to the genus Myr-
mecophila. Several years ago I observed that cucumber vines
were much infested by some minute jumping insects, rather less
than one tenth of an inch long, of a broad oval shape, and black
color, without wing-covers or wings, but furnished with short
thick hinder thighs. They injured the vines very much by eating
holes into or puncturing the leaves, and were expelled by dusting
the plants with flour of sulphur. These cucumber-skippers were
so soft and tender, and withal so agile, that it was difficult to catch
without crushing them. Consequently I was unable to examine
them thoroughly, and failed to preserve specimens of them. It
is possible that they may come near to the genus Myrmecophila,
which was unknown to me at the time ; and since then these mi-
nute insects have escaped my observation. They were very
different from the little flea-beetles (Haltica cucumeris or pu-
bescens), also found on cucumber-vines, which have already been
noticed among the Coleopterous insects.*
2. GRASSHOPPERS. (Gryllide.)
Grasshoppers, properly so called, as before stated, are those
jumping orthopterous insects which have four joints to all their
feet, long bristle-formed antenne, and in which the females are
provided with a piercer, flattened at the sides, and somewhat re-
* See p. 103.
126 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
sembling a sword or cimeter in shape. The wing-covers slope
downwards at the sides of the body, and overlap only a little on
the top of the back near the thorax. ‘This overlapping portion,
which forms a long triangle, is traversed, in the males, by strong
projecting veins, between which, in many of them, are mem-
branous spaces as transparent as glass. ‘The sounds emitted by
the males, and varying according to the species, are produced by
the friction of these overlapping portions together.
In Massachusetts there is one kind of grasshopper, which forms
a remarkable exception to the other native insects of this family ;
and, as it does not seem to have been named or described by any
author, although by no means an uncommon insect, it may receive
a passing notice here. It is found only under stones and rubbish
in woods, has a short thick body, and remarkably stout hind
thighs, like a cricket, but is entirely destitute of wing-covers and
wings, even when arrived at maturity. It probably belongs to
M. Serville’s genus Raphidophora, the awl-bearer, only one spe-
cies of which has been described, and that one is a native of Java.
I propose, therefore, to call this species Raphidophora maculata*,
the spotted awl-bearer. Its body is of a pale yellowish brown
color, darker on the back, which is covered with little light-
colored spots, and the outside of the hindmost thighs is marked
with numerous short oblique lines, disposed in parallel rows, like
those on the thighs of Acheta vittata. It varies in length from
one half to more than three quarters of an inch, exclusive of the
piercer and legs. ‘The body is smooth and shining, and the
back is arched.
Most grasshoppers are of a green color, and are furnished with
wings and wing-covers, the latter frequently resembling the leaves
of trees, upon which, indeed, many of these insects pass the
greater part of their lives. ‘Their leaf-like form and green color
evidently seem to have been designed for the better concealment
of these insects. ‘They commit their eggs to the earth, dropping
them into holes made for this purpose by their piercers. ‘They
lay a large number of eggs at a time, and cover them with a kind
of varnish, which, when dry, forms a thin film that completely
* Gryllus maculatus, Harris. Catalogue of the Insects of Massachusetts.
ORTHOPTERA. 127
encloses them. Their eggs are laid in the autumn, and usually
are not hatched till the following spring. ‘They are nocturnal in-
sects, or at least more active by night than by day. When taken
between the fingers, they emit from their mouths a considerable
quantity of dark-colored fluid, as do also the locusts or diurnal
grasshoppers. They devour the leaves of trees, and of other
plants, and lead a solitary life, or at least do not associate and mi-
grate from place to place in great swarms, like some of the crickets
and the locusts.
Some of these grasshoppers have the front of the head obtuse,
and others have it conical, or prolonged to a point between the
antenne. Among the former is the insect, which, from its pe-
culiar note, is called the katy-did. Its body is of a pale green
color, the wing-covers and wings being somewhat darker. Its
thorax is rough like shagreen, and has somewhat the form of a
saddle, being curved downwards on each side, and rounded and
slightly elevated behind, and is marked by two slightly transverse
furrows. The wings are rather shorter than the wing-covers, and
the latter are very large, oval, and concave, and enclose the body
within their concavity, meeting at the edges above and below,
somewhat like the two sides or valves of a pea-pod. The veins
are large, very distinct, and netted like those of some leaves, and
there is one vein of larger size running along the middle of each
wing-cover, and simulating the midrib of a leaf. The musical
organs of the male consists of a pair of taborets. They are
formed by a thin and transparent membrane stretched in a strong
half-oval frame in the triangular overlapping portion of each wing-
cover. During the daytime these insects are silent, and conceal
themselves among the leaves of trees ; but at night, they quit
their lurking places, and the joyous males begin the tell-tale call
with which they enliven their silent mates. This proceeds from
the friction of the taboret frames against each other when the
wing-covers are opened and shut, and consists of two or three dis-
tinct notes almost exactly resembling articulated sounds, and cor-
responding with the number of times that the wing-covers are
opened and shut ; and the notes are repeated, at intervals of a
few minutes, for hours together. ‘The mechanism of the taborets,
and the concavity of the wing-covers, reverberate and increase the
128 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
sound to such a degree, that it may be heard, in the stillness of
the night, at the distance of a quarter of a mile. At the approach
of twilight the katy-did mounts to the upper branches of the tree
in which he lives, and, as soon as the shades of evening prevail,
begins his noisy babble, while rival notes issue from the neigh-
bouring trees, and the groves resound with the call of ‘‘ katy-did,
she-did,”’ the live-long night. Of this insect I have met with no
scientific description except my own, which was published in
1831 in the eighth volume of the ‘‘ Encyclopedia Americana,”
page 42. It is the Platyphyllum* concavum}, and measures,
from the head to the end of the wing-covers, rather more than
one inch and a half, the body alone being one inch in length.
The piercer is broad, laterally compressed, and curved like a
cimeter ; and there are, in both sexes, two little thorn-like pro-
jections from the middle of the breast between the fore-legs. It
is found in the perfect state during the months of September and
October.
We have another broad-winged green grasshopper, differing
from the katy-did, in having the wing-covers narrower, flat
and not concave, and shorter than the wings, the thorax
smooth, flat above, and abruptly bent downwards at a right angle
on each side, and the breast without any projecting spines in the
middle. The piercer has the same form as that of the katy-did.
The musical organ of the left wing-cover, which is the uppermost,
is not transparent, but is green and opake, and is traversed by a
strong curved vein ; that of the right wing-cover is semi-transparent
in the middle. This insect is the Phylloptera oblongifolia}, or
oblong leaf-winged grasshopper. Its body measures about an
inch in length, and from the head to the tips of the wings, from
an inch and three quarters to three inches. It is found in its per-
fect state, during the months of September and October, upon
trees, and, when it flies, makes a whizzing noise somewhat like
that of a weaver’s shuttle. ‘The notes of the male, though grat-
ing, are comparatively feeble.
* Platyphyllum means broad-wing.
t Can this be the Locusta perspicillata of Fabricius ?
t Locusta oblongifolia of De Geer, a different species from the laurifolia of
Linneus, with which it has been confounded by many naturalists.
ORTHOPTERA. 129
A third species, also of a green color, with still narrower
wing-covers, which are of almost equal width from one end to
the other, but are rounded at the tips, and are shorter than the
wings, has the head, thorax, musical organs, and breast, like
those of the preceding species, but the piercer is much short-
er, and very much more crooked, being bent vertically upwards
from near its base. The male has a long tapering projection
from the under-side of the extremity of the body, curved
upwards like the piercer of the female. This grasshopper be-
longs to the genus Phaneroptera, so named, probably, because the
wings are visible beyond the tips of the wing-covers ; and, as it
does not appear to have been described before, I propose to call
it angustifolia,* the narrow-leaved. It measures from the forehead
to the end of the abdomen about three quarters of an inch, and to
the tips of the wings from an inch and a half to an inch and three
quarters. Its habits appear to be the same as those of the oblongi-
folia. It comes to maturity sometime in the latter part of August
or the beginning of September.
From the middle till the end of summer, the grass in our
meadows and moist fields is filled with myriads of little grass-
hoppers, of different ages, and of a light green color, with a
brown stripe on the top of the head, extending to the tip of
the littke smooth and blunt projection between the antenne,
and a broader brown stripe bounded on each side by deeper
brown on the top of the thorax. The antenna, knees, and
shanks are green, faintly tinted with brown, and the feet are
dusky. When come to maturity, they measure three quarters of
an inch or more, from the forehead to the end of the body, or one
inch to the ends of the wing-covers. ‘T'he latter are abruptly nar-
rowed in the middle, and taper thence to the tip, which, however,
is rounded and extends as far back as the wings. The color of
the wing-covers is green, but they are faintly tinged with brown
on the overlapping portion, and have the delicacy and semi-
transparency of the skin of an onion. The shrilling organs in the
* I formerly mistook this insect for the Locusta curvicauda of De Geer, which
is found in the Middle and Southern States, but not in Massachusetts, is a larger
species, with wing-covers broadest in the middle, and different organs in the male,
and belongs to the genus Phylloptera.
17
130 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
males consist of a transparent glassy spot, bounded and traversed
by strong veins, in the middle of the overlapping portion of each
wing-cover, which part is proportionally much larger and longer
than in the other grasshoppers ; but the transparent spot is rather
smaller on the left than on the right wing-cover. The male
is furthermore distinguished by having two small black spots or
short dashes, one behind the other, on each wing-cover, on the
outside of the transparent spot. ‘The wings are green on their
front margins, transparent, and reflecting a faint pink color behind.
The piercer of the female is cimeter-shaped, being curved, and
pointed at the end, and is about three tenths of an inch long.
The hindmost thighs, in both sexes, are smooth and not spinous
beneath; there are two little spines in the middle of the breast ;
and the antenne are very long and slender, and extend, when
turned back, considerably beyond the end of the hind-legs. Dur-
ing the evening, and even at other times in shady places, the males
make a sharp clicking noise, somewhat like that produced by
snapping the point of a pen against the thumb-nail, but much
louder. This kind of grasshopper very much resembles the Lo-
custa agilis of De Geer, which is found in Pennsylvania and the
Southern States, but does not inhabit Massachusetts, and is dis-
tinguished from our species by having the wings nearly one tenth
of an inch longer than the wing-covers, the antenne excessively
long (two inches or more), and the piercer not quite so much
curved as in our species, besides other differences which it is un-
necessary to record here. As our species does not appear to
have been named, or described by any previous writer, I propose
to call it Orchelimum vulgare, the common meadow-grasshopper,
the generical name signifying literally, I dance in the meadow.
With this species another one is also found, bearing a consider-
able resemblance to it in color and form, but measuring only four
or five tenths of an inch from the head to the end of the body, or
from seven to eight tenths to the tips of the wings, which are a
little longer than the wing-covers. The latter are narrow and
taper to the end, which is rounded, but the overlapping portion is
not so large as in the common species, and the male has not the
two black spots on each wing-cover. ‘The upper part of the ab-
domen is brown, with the edges of the segments greenish yellow,
ORTHOPTERA. ' 131
and the piercer, which is nearly three tenths of an inch long, is
brown and nearly straight. This little insect comes very near to
Locusta fasciata of De Geer, who, however, makes no mention
of the broad brown stripe on the head and thorax. I therefore
presume that our species is not the same, and propose to call it
Orchelimum gracile, the slender meadow-grasshopper. M. Ser-
ville, by whom this genus was instituted, has described three spe-
cies, two of which are stated to be North American, and the
remaining one is probably also from this country ; but his de-
scriptions do not answer for either of our species. Both of these
kinds of meadow-grasshoppers are eaten greedily by fowls of all
kinds.
One more grasshopper remains to be described. It is distin-
guished from all the preceding species by having the head coni-
cal, and extending to a blunt point between the eyes. It belongs
to the genus Conocephalus, a word expressive of the conical form
of the head, and, in my Catalogue of the Insects of Massachu-
setts, bears the specific name of ensiger, the sword-bearer, from
the long, straight, sword-shaped piercer of the female. It meas-
ures an inch or more from the point of the head to the end of the
body, and from one inch and three quarters to two inches, to the
end of the wing-covers. It is pale green, with the head whitish, or
only faintly tinted with green, and the legs and abdomen are pale
brownish green. A little tooth projects downwards from the un-
der side of the conical part of the head, which extends between
the antenne, and immediately before this little tooth is a black
line bent backwards on each side like the letter U. The hind-
most thighs have five or six exceedingly minute spines on the
inner ridge of the under-side. The shrilling organ of the male, on
the left wing-cover, is green and opake, but that on the right
has a space in the middle that is transparent like glass. The
piercer of the female is above an inch long, very slightly bent
near the body, and perfectly straight from thence to the tip,
which ends in a point. The color of this grasshopper is very apt
to change, after death, to a dirty brown. It comes very near to
the disstmilts described by M. Serville, but appears to be a dif-
ferent species.*
* In the collection belonging to the Boston Society of Natural History, there is
132 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
3. Locusts. (Locustad@.)
The various insects included under the name of locusts nearly
all agree in having their wing-covers rather long and narrow, and
placed obliquely along the sides of the body, meeting, and even
overlapping for a short distance, at their upper edges, which
together form a ridge on the back like a sloping roof.. Their an-
tenne are much shorter than those of most grasshoppers, and do
not taper towards the end, but are nearly of equal thickness at
both extremities. Their feet have really only three joints ; but
as the under-side of the first joint is marked by one or two cross
lines, the feet, when seen only from below, seem to be four or
five jointed. The females have not a long projecting piercer like
the crickets and grasshoppers, but the extremity of their body is
provided with four short, wedge-like pieces, placed in pairs above
and below, and opening and shutting opposite to each other, thus
forming an instrument like a pair of nippers, only with four short
blades instead of two. When one of these insects is about to lay
her eggs, she drives these little wedges into the earth; these,
being then opened and withdrawn, enlarge the orifice ; upon
which the insect inserts them again, and drives them down deeper
than before, and repeats the operation above described until she
has formed a perforation large and deep enough to admit nearly
the whole of her abdomen. ‘The males, though capable of pro-
an insect which I suppose to be the Conocephalus dissimilis of Serville. It was
taken in North Carolina by Professor Hentz. The conical projection of the head
is shorter and more obtuse than in the ensiger, the sides of the thorax are brown-
ish, the hindmost thighs have a double row of black dots on the under-side, and
the spines on this part are more numerous and rather larger. Professor Hentz has
sent to me from Alabama another species distinct from both of these, about the
same in length, but considerably broader. The conical part of the head between
the eyes is broader, flattened above, and, as well as the thorax, rough like shagreen.
There is a projecting tubercle beneath, but the curved black line is wanting, and
the tip of the cone has a minute point abruptly bent downwards, and forming a
hook. The sides of the thorax are bent down suddenly so as to make an angular
ridge on each side of the middle. The wing-covers are dotted with black around
their edges, and have also an irregular row of larger and more distinct spots along
the middle. The hindmost thighs have a double row of strong spines beneath,
and the piercer is straight and only about six tenths of an inch long. This insect
may be called Conocephalus uncinatus, from the hook on the tip of the head.
ORTHOPTERA. 133
ducing sounds, have not the cymbals and tabors of the crickets
and grasshoppers ; their instruments may rather be likened to
violins, their hind-legs being the bows, and the projecting veins of
their wing-covers the strings. But besides these, they have on
each side of the body, in the first segment of the abdomen, just
above anda little behind the thighs, a deep cavity closed by a
thin piece of skin stretched tightly across it. ‘These probably act
in some measure to increase the reverberation of the sound, like
the cavity of a violin. When a locust begins to play, he bends
the shank of one hind-leg beneath the thigh, where it is lodged in
a furrow designed to receive it, and then draws the leg briskly up
and down several times against the projecting lateral edge and
veins of the wing-cover. He does not play both fiddles together,
but alternately, for a little time, first upon one, and then on
the other, standing meanwhile upon the four anterior legs and
the hind-leg which is not otherwise employed. It is stated that,
in Spain, people of fashion keep these insects, which they call
grillo, in cages, for the sake of their music. Locusts leap much
better than grasshoppers, for the thighs of their hind legs, though
shorter, are much thicker, and consequently more muscular
within. ‘The back part of the shanks of these legs, from a little
below the knee to the end, is armed with strong sharp spines,
arranged in two rows. ‘These may serve as means of defence,
but the lower ones also help to fix the legs firmly against the
ground when the insect is going to leap. ‘The power of flight in -
locusts is, 1m general, much greater than that of grasshoppers ; for
the wing-covers, being narrow, do not, like the much wider ones
of grasshoppers, so much impede their passage through the air ;
while their wings, which are ample, except in a few species, and
when expanded together form half of a circle, have very strong
joints, and are moved by very powerful muscles within the chest.
From the shoulders of the wings several stout ribs or veins pass
towards the hinder margin, spreading apart, when the wings are
opened, like the sticks of a fan, and are connected and strength-
ened by little crossing veins, which form a kind of net-work. The
same structure exists in the wings of grasshoppers, but in them
the longitudinal ribs are not so strong, and the network is much
more delicate. Hence the flight of grasshoppers is short and un-
134 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. :
steady, while that of locusts is longer and better sustained. Many
locusts, when they fly, make a loud whizzing noise, the source of
which does not seem to be understood. Those of our native
locusts, whose flight is the most noisy, are the coral-winged, the
yellow-winged, and the broad-winged species. But as these are
comparatively small insects, and never assemble in such great
swarms as the much larger migrating locusts of Asia and Africa,
the noise of their flight bears no comparison to that of the latter.
When a large number of these take flight together, it is said that
the noise is like the rushing of a whirlwind ; and hence we read,
of the symbolical locusts of the Apocalypse, that the sound of
their wings was as the sound of chariots of horses running to bat-
tle* ; and, of others, that their coming is like the noise of chariots
on the tops of mountains, or the crackling of stubble when over-
run, and consumed by a flame of fire f.
The East seems to have suffered severely at various times
from the irruptions of immense swarms of locusts, darkening the
sky during their passage, stripping the surface of the earth, where
they alight, of all vestiges of vegetation, and thus reducing, in an
inconceivably short time, the most fertile regions to barren
wastes. The ground over which they have passed presents the
appearance of having been scorched by fire, and hence the name
of locust, which is derived from the Latin{, and means a burnt
place, is highly expressive of the desolation occasioned by their
ravages. Famine and pestilence have sometimes followed their
appearance, as we find recorded by various writers. In the
Scriptures § frequent mention is made of the destructive powers
of locusts, and these accounts are fully confirmed by the testimony
of numerous travellers in Asia and Africa, some of whom have
been eyewitnesses of the devastations of these insects. Among
* Revelations IX. 11. t Joel II. 5. { Locus and ustus.
§ For an explanation of the various passages in which allusion is made to lo-
custs, and for much interesting matter, relating to the history of these insects as
contained in the Bible and elucidated by the accounts of historians and travellers,
the reader is referred to the article locust in the learned and instructive work of my
father, entitled ‘The Natural History of the Bible, by Thaddeus Mason Harris.”
8vo. Boston: 1820.
ORTHOPTERA. 135
the later accounts, that contained in Olivier’s ‘‘ Travels”? does
not seem to have been quoted by English writers. The follow-
ing is a free translation of the passage. Olivier, at the time of
writing it, was in Syria. ‘* After a burning south wind had pre-
vailed for some time, there came, from the interior of Arabia and
from the southern parts of Persia, clouds of locusts, whose
ravages in these countries are as grievous and as sudden as the
destruction occasioned in Europe by the most severe hail-storm.
Of these my companion, M. Brugicres, and myself were twice
witnesses. It is difficult to describe the effect produced on us’
by the sight of the whole atmosphere filled, on all sides, to a vast
height, with a countless multitude of these insects, which flew
along with a slow and even motion, and with a noise like the
dashing of a shower of rain. ‘The heavens were darkened by
them, and the light of the sun was sensibly diminished. In a
moment the roofs of the houses, the streets, and all the fields
were completely covered with these insects, and in two days they
almost entirely devoured the foliage of every plant. Fortunately,
however, they continued but a short time, and seemed to have
emigrated only for the purpose of providing for a continuation of
their kind. In fact, nearly all of them which we saw on the next
day were paired, and in a day or two afterwards the ground was
covered with their dead bodies.””* ‘These were not the still
more celebrated and destructive migratory locusts (Locusta mi-
gratoria), but consisted of the species called Acrydium pere-
grinum.
Although the ravages of locusts in America are not followed by
such serious consequences as in the Eastern continent, yet they
are sufficiently formidable to have attracted attention, and not un-
frequently have these insects laid waste considerable tracts, and
occasioned no little loss to the cultivator of the soil. Our salt-
marshes, which are accounted among the most productive and
valuable of our natural meadows, are frequented by great numbers
of the small red-legged species (Acrydium femur-rubrum), inter-
mingled occasionally with some larger kinds. These, in certain
* Olivier, Voyage dans l’Empire Ottoman, l’Egypte et la Perse. Tom. II.
p. 424.
136 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
seasons, almost entirely consume the grass of these marshes, from
whence they then take their course to the uplands, devouring, in
their way, grass, corn, and vegetables, till checked by the early
frosts, or by the close of the natural term of their existence.
When a scanty crop of hay has been gathered from the grounds
which these puny pests have ravaged, it becomes so tainted with
the putrescent bodies of the dead locusts contained in it, that it is
rejected by horses and cattle. In this country locusts are not
distinguished from grasshoppers, and are generally, though incor-
rectly, comprehended under the same name, or under that of flying
grasshoppers. They, are, however, if we make allowance for
their inferior size, quite as voracious and injurious to vegetation
during the young or larva and pupa states, when they are not pro-
vided with wings, as they are when fully grown. In our news-
papers I have sometimes seen accounts of the devastations of
grasshoppers, which could only be applicable to some of our
locusts. At various times they have appeared in great abundance
in different parts of New England. It is stated that, in Maine,
‘¢ during dry seasons, they often appear in great multitudes, and
are the greedy destroyers of the half-parched herbage.” ‘‘ In
1749 and 1754 they were very numerous and voracious ; no
vegetables escaped these greedy troops ; they even devoured the
potato tops; and in 1743 and 1756 they covered the whole
country and threatened to devour every thing green. Indeed, so
great was the alarm they occasioned among the people, that days of
fasting and prayer were appointed*,”’ on account of the threat-
ened calamity. ‘The southern and western parts of New Hamp-
shire, the northern and eastern parts of Massachusetts, and the
southern part of Vermont have been overrun by swarms of these
miscalled grasshoppers, and have suffered more or less from their
depredations. Among the various accounts which I have seen,
the following, extracted from the Travels of the late President
Dwightt+, seems to be the most full and circumstantial. ‘‘ Ben-
nington (Vermont), and its neighbourhood, have for some time
past been infested by grasshoppers (locusts) of a kind, with which
* See Williamson’s History of Maine, Vol. I. p. 102, 103, and compare with
p- 172 of the same work.
t Travels in New England and New York, by Timothy Dwight. Vol. I. p. 403. ~
ORTHOPTERA. 137
IT had before been wholly unacquainted. At least, their history,
as given by respectable persons, is in a great measure novel.
They appear at different periods, in different years; but the time
of their continuance seems to be the same. ‘This year, (1798),
they came four weeks earlier than in 1797, and disappeared four
weeks sooner. As I had no opportunity of examining them, I
cannot describe their form or their size. Their favorite food is
clover and maize. Of the latter they devour the part which is
called the silk ; the immediate means of fecundating the ear ; and
thus prevent the kernel from coming to perfection. But their vo-
racity extends to almost every vegetable ; even to the tobacco
plant and the burdock. Nor are they confined to vegetables
alone. ‘The garments of laborers, hung up in the field while they
are at work, these insects destroy in a few hours ; and with the
same voracity they devour the loose particles which the saw
leaves upon the surface of pine boards, and which, when separ-
ated, are termed saw-dust. ‘The appearance of a board fence,
from which the particles had been eaten in this manner, and which
I saw, was novel and singular ; and seemed the result, not of the
operations of the plane, but of attrition. At times, particularly a
little before their disappearance, they collect in clouds, rise high
in the atmosphere, and take extensive flights, of which neither the
cause, nor the direction has hitherto been discovered. I was au-
thentically informed that some persons, employed in raising the
steeple of the church in Williamstown, were, while standing near
the vane, covered by them, and saw, at the same time, vast
swarms of them flying far above their heads. It is to be observed,
however, that they customarily return, and perish on the very
grounds which they have ravaged.”” Through the kindness of the
Rev. L. W. Leonard, of Dublin, New Hampshire, I have been
favored with specimens of the destructive locusts which occa-
sionally appear in that part of New England, and which, most
probably, are of the same species as the insects mentioned by
President Dwight. They prove to be the little red-legged locusts,
whose ravages on our salt-marshes I have already recorded. In
the summer of 1838, the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, was
infested by insects of this kind ; and I was informed by a young
gentleman, from that place, then a student in Harvard University,
18
138 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
that they were so thick and destructive in the garden and grounds
of his father, that the negroes were employed to drive them from
the garden with rods; and in this way they were repeatedly
whipped out of the grounds, leaping and flying before the ex-
tended line of castigators like a flock of fowls. Some of these
insects were brought to me by the same gentleman, on his return
to the University, at the end of the summer vacation, and they
turned out to be specimens of the red-legged locusts already men-
tioned.
It is not to be supposed that these are the only depredatory
locusts in this country. Massachusetts, alone, produces a large
number of species, some of which have never been described ; and
the habits of many of them have not been fully investigated. The
difficulty which 1 have met with in ascertaining, from mere verbal
reports, or from the accounts that occasionally appear in our pub-
lic prints, the scientific names of the noxious insects which are the
subjects of such remarks, and the impossibility, without this
knowledge of their names, of fixing upon the true culprits, has
induced me to draw up, in this treatise, brief descriptions of all
our locusts, as a guide to other persons in their investigations.
All the locusts of Massachusetts, that are known to me, may
be included in three large groups or genera, viz : Acrydium (of
Geoffroy and Latreille), Locusta (G@ryllus Locusta of Linneus),
and Tetrix (of Latreille). These three genera may be distin-
guished from each other by the following characters.*
* T have not considered it necessary to give, in addition to these, the characters
that distinguish them from the other genera of American Locusts, which are not
found in Massachusetts; but add the characteristics of these genera in this note.
Opsomala. Body slender and cylindrical ; head long and conical, extending
with an obtuse point between the antenne ; eyes oblong oval and oblique; an-
tenne short, flattened, and more or less enlarged towards the base and tapering
towards the point; a pointed tubercle between the fore-legs on the breast ; wing-
covers narrow and pointed; face sloping down towards the breast, and forming
an acute angle with the top of the head.
Truzalis. Body rather thicker ; head shorter, but ending in a blunt cone be-
tween the antenne ; eyes oval and oblique; antenne short, flattened, enlarged
near the base, and tapering to a point; no tubercle between the fore-legs ; wing-
covers wider and not so pointed ; face sloping towards the breast, and forming an
angle of forty-five degrees with the top of the head ; thorax flat above, and marked
with three longitudinal elevated lines.
ORTHOPTERA. 139
1. Acrydium. The thorax (prothorax of Kirby) and the wing-
covers of ordinary dimensions ; a projecting spine in the middle
of the breast ; and a little projecting cushion between the nails of
all the feet.
2. Locusta. 'The thorax, and usually the wing-covers also, of
ordinary dimensions ; no projecting spine in the middle of the
breast ; cushions between the nails of the feet.
3. Tetrix. The thorax (prothorax) greatly prolonged, taper-
ing to a point behind, and covering the whole of the back to the
extremity of the abdomen ; wing-covers exceedingly minute, con-
sisting only of a little scale on each side of the body ; forepart
of the breast forming a projection, like a cravat or stock, to re-
ceive the lower part of the head ; no spine in the middle of the
breast ; no cushions between the nails.
I, ACRYDIUM. Spine-breasted Locusts.
This word, which is nearly the same as one of the Greek
names of a locust, has been variously applied by different ento-
mologists. I have followed Latreille and Serville in confining it
to those locusts which have a projecting spine or tubercle in the
middle of the forepart of the breast between the fore-legs. ‘To
this genus belong the following native species.
1. Acrydium alutaceum. Leather-colored locust.
Dirty brownish yellow ; a paler yellow stripe on the top of the
head and thorax; a slightly elevated longitudinal line on the
top of the thorax ; wing-covers semitransparent, with irregular
brownish spots ; wings transparent, uncolored, netted with dirty
Xiphicera. Robust; head not conical, but with a projection between the an-
tenne ; face vertical; antenne rather short, flattened more or less, and tapering
at the end; a spine between the fore-legs on the breast; wing-covers about as long
as the abdomen, obtuse or notched at the end; thorax with three elevated crested
lines, which are frequently notched.
Romalea. Very thick and short; head obtuse; face vertical ; antenne short,
of equal thickness to the end, seventeen or eighteen jointed ; thorax with a some-
what elevated crest ; a spine between the fore-legs on the breast ; wing-covers and
wings much shorter than the abdomen.
The first two of these genera seem to connect the cone-headed grasshoppers
with the locust family, while the last two approach nearer to the genus 4crydium ;
many foreign genera, however, are interposed between them.
140 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
yellow; abdomen with transverse rows of minute blackish dots ;
hindmost thighs whitish within and without, the white portion
bounded by a row of minute distant black dots, and crossed, her-
ring-bone fashion, by numerous brown lines; hindmost shanks
reddish, with yellowish white spines, which are tipped with black. —
Length, to the end of the abdomen, 1} inch; the wing-covers
expand over 3 inches.
This insect was brought to me, from Martha’s Vineyard, by Mr.
Robert Treat Paine. It bears a close resemblance in form to
Acrydium Americanum of De Geer, a much larger and more
showy Southern species.
2. Acrydium flavo-vittatum.* Yellow-striped locust.
Olive-colored, with a yellowish line on each side from the fore-
head to the tips of the wing-covers ; hindmost shanks and feet
blood-red, the spines tipped with black ; wings transparent, faintly
tinged with pale green, and netted with greenish brown lines.
The abdomen of the male is very obtuse and curves upwards
at the end, and is furnished, on each side of the tip, with a rather
large oblong square appendage, which has a little projecting angle
in the middle of the lower side. Length, to tip of the abdomen,
from 1 inch to 14; expands from 14 inch to 2 inches.
This and the following species probably belong to the subgenus
Oxya of Serville. The yellow-striped locust is one of our most
common insects. It is readily known by its color, and by the
two yellowish lines on the thorax, extending, when the insect ac-
quires wings, along the inner margin of the wing-covers. It is
very troublesome in gardens, climbing upon the stems of beans,
peas, and flowers, devouring the leaves of petals, and defiling
them with its excrement. The young begin to appear in June,
and they come to their growth and acquire their wings by the first
of August. When about to moult, like other locusts, they cling
to the stem of some plant, till the skin bursts and the insect with-
* This species agrees, in some respects, with Serville’s Acrydium olivaceum, but
it is a smaller insect, the hind shanks are not blue, and the last ventral segment
of the male is not deeply notched at tip, but is entire and somewhat pointed. It
does not agree any better with Say’s description of Gryllus bivittatus, which pos-
sibly is the same as Serville’s species above named.
ORTHOPTERA. 141
draws its body and legs from it, and leaves the cast-skin still
fastened to the plant.
3. Acrydium femur-rubrum. Red-legged locust.
Grizzled with dirty olive and brown; a black spot extending
from the eyes along the sides of the thorax; an oblique yellow
line on each side of the body beneath the wings ; a row of dusky
brown spots along the middle of the wing-covers ; and the hind-
most shanks and feet blood-red, with black spines. The wings
are transparent, with a very pale greenish yellow tint next to the
body, and are netted with brown lines. ‘The hindmost thighs
have two large spots, on the upper side, and the extremity, black ;
but are red below, and yellow on the inside. The appendages at
the tip of the body in the male are of a long triangular form.
Length from ? inch to 1 inch; exp. 1} to 1j inch.
The red-legged locust was first described by De Geer from
specimens sent to him from Pennsylvania, and I have retained the
scientific name which he gave to it. It is the Gryllus (Locusta)
erythropus of Gmelin, and the Acrydium femorale of Olivier.
It appears to be very generally diffused throughout the United
States, and sometimes so greatly abounds, in certain places, as to
be productive of great injury to vegetation. I have already de-
scribed its prevalence on our salt marshes ; and it seems to con-
stitute those large migrating swarms whose flight has been observed
and recorded in various parts of this country. It comes to ma-
turity with us by the latter part of July, some broods, however,
a little earlier, and others later. It is most plentiful and destruc-
tive during the months of August and September, and does not
disappear till some time in October.
11. Locusta. Locusts proper.
With the English entomologists, I apply the name Locusta to
that genus which includes the celebrated migrating locust, or
Gryllus Locusta migratoria of Linneus. By the older French
entomologists the insects contained in it were united to the genus
Acrydium ; but Latreille afterwards separated them from Acrydi-
um under the generical name of Cidipoda (which means swelled
leg), and he is followed in this by Serville, the latest writer on
142 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
the Orthoptera. In the insects of this genus the breast is not
armed with a blunt spine or tubercle, a character which distin-
euishes the genus Acrydium from it. In other respects these two
genera are much alike.
1. Locusta Carolina.* Carolina locust.
Pale yellowish brown, with small dusky spots ; wings black,
with a broad yellow hind margin, which is covered with dusky
spots at the tip. Length from 1 to 14 inch; exp. 23 to above
34 inches.
A more detailed description of this large, common, and well-
known species is unnecessary. The Carolina locust is found in
abundance by the road-side, from the middle to the end of sum-
mer. It generally makes use of its large and handsome wings in
moving from place to place. It is frequently found in company
with the red-legged locust in the vicinity of salt marshes, but it
generally prefers warm and dry situations. Pairing takes place
with this species in the months of September and October, im-
mediately after which the female prepares to lay her eggs. ‘These
are deposited at the bottom of a cylindrical hole in the ground,
made in the manner already described, and are not hatched till
the following spring. 'The abdomen of the female admits of being
greatly extended in length, hence she frequently deposits her eggs
at the depth of nearly two inches beneath the surface of the soil.
2. Locusta corallina. Coral-winged locust.
Light brown ; spotted with dark brown on the wing-covers ;
wings light vermilion or coral-red, with an external dusky border,
which is wide and paler at the tip, narrowed and darker behind ;
hind shanks yellow with black-tipped spines. Length 1 to 1}
inch ; exp. 24 to 2 inches.
This species closely resembles the Acridium tuberculatum of
Palisot de Beauvois, which seems to be the dipoda discoidea
of Serville, found in the Southern States, of a much larger size
than the coral-winged locust, and having the wings of a much
deeper and duller red color, and the blackish border not so much
* Gryllus Locusta Carolinus, Linneus.
ORTHOPTERA. 143
narrowed behind. It cannot be mistaken for the fenestralis,
which M. Serville describes as having the antenne nearly as long
as the body, whereas in this species they are not half that length.
The coral-winged locust is the first that makes its appearance
with wings in the spring, being found flying about in warm and
dry pastures as early as the middle of April or the first of May,
and is rendered very conspicuous by its bright colored wings, and
the loud noise which it makes in flying. It probably passes the
winter in the pupa state, and undergoes its last transformation in
the spring ; but its history is not yet fully known to me, and this
opinion is the result only of conjecture.
3. Locusta sulphurea. Yellow-winged locust.
Dusky brown; thorax slightly keeled in the middle ; wing-
covers ash-colored at their extremities, more or less distinctly
spotted with brown ; wings deep yellow next to the body, dusky
at tip, the yellow portion bounded beyond the middle by a broad
dusky brown band, which curves and is prolonged on the hind
margin, but does not reach the angle next to the extremity of the
body ; hindmost thighs blackish at the end, and with two black
and two whitish bands on the inside ; hindmost shanks and their
spines black, with a broad whitish ring just below the knees.
Length ,8, to 14 inch; exp. 17 to 2} inches.
This insect agrees tolerably well with the brief description
given by Fabricius of his Gryllus sulphureus, except that the
wings are not sulphur-yellow, but of a deeper tint. It is also
described and figured by Palisot de Beauvois under the name of
Acridium sulphureum. It is a rare species in this vicinity. I
have taken it, though sparingly, in its perfect state, in May and
in September. ‘The elevated ridge on the top of the thorax is
higher than in any other species found in Massachusetts.
4. Locusta maritima. Maritime locust.
Ash-gray ; face variegated with white ; wing-covers sprinkled
with minute brownish spots, and semitransparent at tip ; wings
transparent, faintly tinted with yellow next the body, uncolored at
tip, with a series of irregular blackish spots forming a curved
band across the middle ; hindmost shanks and feet pale yellow,
144 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
with the extreme points of the spines black. Length } to 14
inch ; exp. 1,!, inch to 23 inches.
This species comes very near to Mr. Kirby’s description of
the Locusta leucostoma; but is evidently distinct from it, and
does not appear to have been described before. I have received
it from Sandwich, and have found it in great abundance among
the coarse grass which grows near the edges of our sandy beach-
es, but have never seen it except in the immediate vicinity of the
sea. It comes to maturity and lays its eggs about the middle of ©
August or a little later.
5. Locusta equalis. Barren-ground locust.
Ash-gray, mottled with dusky brown and white ; wing-covers
semitransparent at tip, with numerous dusky spots which run
together so as to form three transverse bands ; wings light yellow
on their basal half, transparent with dusky veins and a few spots
at the tip, with an intermediate broad black band, which, curving
and becoming narrower on the hind margin, is continued to the
inner angle of the wing ; hindmost shanks coral-red, with a broad
white ring below the knees, and the spines tipped with black.
Length 1} inch ; exp. 2} inches.
Mr. Say, to whom I sent a specimen of this handsome locust,
informed me that it was his Gryllus equalis, probably intended for
equalis. It is found, during the months of July and August, on
dry barren hills and on sandy plains, upon the scanty herbage in-
termingled with the rein-deer moss.
6. Locusta latipennis. Broad-winged locust.
Ash-colored, mottled with black and gray ; wing-covers semi-
transparent beyond the middle, with numerous blackish spots which
run together at the base, and form a band across the middle ;
wings broad, light yellow on the basal half, the remainder dusky
but partially transparent, with black network, and deep black at
tip, and an intermediate irregular band, formed by a contiguous
series of black spots, reaching only to the hind margin, but not
continued towards the inner angle ; hindmost shanks pale yellow,
with a black ring below the knees, a broader one at the extremity,
and a blackish spot behind the upper part of the shank. Length
: ‘ na
3%; inch 3 exp. 1,75 inch.
ORTHOPTERA. 145
It is possible that this may be a variety of the preceding spe-
cies, from which it differs especially in the form and width of the
wings and in the colors of the hindmost shanks. It is found in
the same places, and at the same time as the barren-ground locust.
7. Locusta marmorata. Marbled locust.
Ash-colored, variegated with pale yellow and black ; thorax
suddenly narrowed before the middle, and the slightly elevated
longitudinal line on the top is cut through in the middle by a
transverse fissure ; wing-covers marbled with large whitish and
black spots, and semitransparent at the end ; wings light yellow
on the half next to the body, transparent near the end, with two
black spots on the tip, and a broad intermediate black band,
which, narrowed and curving inwards on the hind margin, nearly
reaches the inner angle ; hindmost thighs pale yellow, black at
the extremity, and nearly surrounded by two broad black bands ;
hind shanks coral-red, with a black ring immediately below the
knee, and followed by a white ring, black at the lower extremity
also, with the tips of the spines black. In some individuals there
is an additional black ring below the white one on the shanks.
Length from {%, to above ,°; inch; exp. 1;4, to 1,8, inch.
The marbled locust, which is one of our prettiest species, is
found in the open places contiguous to or within pitch-pine woods,
flying over the scanty grass and rein-deer moss which not unfre-
quently grow in these situations. It is marked on the wings
somewhat like the barren-ground locust, but is invariably smaller,
with the thorax much more contracted before the middle. It
appears, in the perfect state, from the middle of July to the mid-
dle of October.
8. Locusta eucerata. Long-horned locust.
Ash-colored, variegated with gray and dark brown ; antenne
nearly as long as the body, and with flattened joints ; thorax very
much pinched or compressed laterally before the middle, with a
slightly elevated longitudinal line, which is interrupted by two
notches ; wing-covers and wings long and narrow ; the former
variegated with dusky spots, and semitransparent at tip ; wings
next to the body yellow, sometimes pale, sometimes deep and
19
146 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
almost orange colored, at other times uncolored and semitranspar-
ent ; with a broad black band across the middle, which is narrow-
ed and prolonged on the hinder margin, and extends quite to the
inner angle ; beyond the band the wings are transparent, with the
tips black or covered with blackish spots ; hindmost shanks whit-
ish, with a black ring at each end, a broader one of the same color
just above the middle, and the spines tipped with black. Length
1 inch to inch; exp. 1,8; inch to more than 13 inch.
The wings of this species are very variable in color at the base.
The fenestralis described by M. Serville has the base of the
wings vermilion red, but in other respects it approaches to this
species. The long-horned locust is found oftentimes in company
with the marbled species, and also near sea-beaches with the
maritime locust, from the last of July to the middle of October.
9. Locusta nebulosa. Clouded locust.
Dusky brown ; thorax with a slender keel-like elevation, which
is cut across in the middle by a transverse fissure ; wing-covers
pale, clouded and spotted with brown ; wings transparent, dusky
at tip, with a dark brown line on the front margin ; hindmost
shanks brown, with darker spines, and a broad whitish ring below
the knees. Length from ,%; inch to more than 1,25 inch; exp.
from 14 inch to more than 2 inches.
A very common species, and easily known by its clouded wing-
covers and colorless wings. It abounds in pastures and even in
corn-fields and gardens, during the months of September and
October, at which time it is furnished with wings and may often
be seen paired or busied in laying eggs. It does not appear to
have been described before.
The three following locusts differ from the preceding in having
the antenne shorter than the thorax, and slightly thickened to-
wards the end, and the face somewhat oblique, the mouth being
nearer the breast than in our other species of Locusta; and they
seem to constitute a distinct group or subgenus, which may re-
ceive the name of Tragocephala, or goat-headed locusts.
ORTHOPTERA. 147
10. Locusta (Tragocephala) infuscata. Dusky locust.
Dusky brown ; thorax with a slender keel-like elevation ; wing-
covers faintly spotted with brown ; wings transparent, pale green-
ish yellow next to the body, with a large dusky cloud near the
middle of the hind margin, and a black line on the front margin ;
hind thighs pale, with two large black spots on the inside ; hind
shanks brown, with darker spines, and a broad whitish ring below
the knees. Length 7 inch ; exp. above 1} inch.
This somewhat resembles the clouded locust, from which,
however, it is easily distinguished by its much shorter antenne and
the dusky cloud on the hinder margin of the wings. I have cap-
tured it in pastures, in the perfect state, from the middle of May
to near the end of July. I believe that it has never been de-
scribed before.
11. Locusta ( Tragocephala) viridi-fasciata. Green-striped locust.
Green ; thorax keeled above ; wing-covers with a broad green
stripe on the outer margin extending from the base beyond the mid-
dle and including two small dusky spots on the edge, the remainder
dusky but semitransparent at the end ; wings transparent, very pale
greenish yellow next to the body, with a large dusky cloud near
the middle of the hind margin, and a black line on the front mar-
gin; antenne, fore and middle legs reddish ; hind thighs green,
with two black spots in the furrow beneath ; hind shanks blue-
gray, with a broad whitish ring below the knees, and the spines
whitish, tipped with black. Length about 1 inch; exp. from
more than 1? to nearly 2 inches. .
This insect is the Acrydium viridi-fasciatum of De Geer, who
was the first describer of it, the Gryllus Virginianus of Fabri-
cius, the Gryllus Locusta chrysomelas of Gmelin, the Acrydium
marginatum of Olivier, and the Acridium hemipterum of Palisot
de Beauvois. It is remarkable that a species, so strongly marked
as this is, should have been so profusely named. Palisot de ©
Beauvois seems to have selected the most appropriate name for
it; for the green portion of the wing-covers is thick and opake,
and the dusky portion thin and semitransparent, as in the wing-
covers of Hemipterous insects. It is very common in pastures
148 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
and mowing lands from the first of June to the middle of August,
being found in various states of maturity throughout this period.
The young also appear still earlier, and are readily known by
their green color, and large compressed thorax, which is arched
and crested or keeled above, and by their very short and flattened
-antenne. These locusts are sometimes very troublesome in gar-
dens, living upon the leaves of vegetables and flowers, and attack-
ing the buds and half expanded petals. The larve or young
survive the winter, sheltered among the roots of grass and under
leaves.
12. Locusta (Tragocephala) radiata. Radiated locust.
Rust-brown ; thorax keeled above ; wing-covers entirely brown,
but semitransparent at the end ; wings transparent, with brown
network, and the principal longitudinal veins black ; they are very
faintly tinted with green next to the body, have a large dusky
cloud near the middle of the hind margin, and a brown streak on
the front margin ; hind shanks reddish brown, a little paler below
the knees, and the spines tipped with black. Length about 1
inch ; exp. from 1? to 2 inches.
This species is now for the first time described. It seems to
be rare. I captured one specimen in Cambridge on the first of
July, and have received another from Dr. D. 8. C. H. Smith of
Sutton, Massachusetts. It is found in North Carolina as early as
the month of May in the perfect state.
_The following species have the face still more oblique than the
foregoing, but the antenne are much longer, particularly in the
males, in which they nearly equal the body in length, and are not
enlarged towards the end. ‘The eyes are oval and oblique, and
there is a,deep hollow before each of them for the reception of
the: first joint of the antenne. The thorax is not crested or
keeled, but is flattened above, with three slender threadlike ele-
vated lines, and the hind margin is very nearly transverse, or not
much (if at all) angulated behind. The wing-covers and wings
are extremely short. The hind-legs are long and slender. I~
propose therefore to separate these species from the other locusts
under a subgenus by the name of Chloéaltis, derived from the
Greek, and signifying a grasshopper.
ORTHOPTERA. 149
13. Locusta (Chloéaltis) conspersa. Sprinkled locust.
Light bay, sprinkled with black spots ; a black line on the head
behind each eye, extending on each side of the thorax on the
lateral elevated line ; wing-covers oblong oval, pale yellowish
brown, with numerous small darker brown spots ; wings about
three twentieths of an inch long, transparent, with dusky lines at
the tip ; hind shanks pale red, with the spines black at the end.
Length nearly ;%, inch.
This may be merely a variety of the following species, though
very differently colored.
14. Locusta (Chloéaltis) abortiva. Abortive locust.
Brown ; wing-covers with dark brown veins and confluent
spots, covering two thirds of the abdomen ; wings three twentieths
of an inch long, transparent, with dusky lines at the tip; hind
margin of the thorax straight ; hind shanks coral-red, whitish
just below the knees, the spines tipped with black. Length
nearly =°; inch.
This and the preceding locust, have much the appearance of
pupe or young insects, nevertheless I believe that their wings and
wing-covers never become larger, and Mr. Leonard informs me
that they are found paired. I have captured the abortive locust
in pastures near the end of July. ;
15. Locusta (Chloéaltis) curtipennis.* Short-winged locust.
Olive-gray above, variegated with dark gray and black Wlets :
and body beneath yellow ; a broad black line extends from behind”
each eye on the sides of the thorax ; wing-covers, in the male,
as long as the abdomen, in the female, covering two thirds of the
abdomen ; wings rather shorter than the wing-covers, transparent,
and faintly tinged with yellow; hinder knees black; spines on
the hind shanks tipped with black. Length from 3} to more than
75 inch; exp. from ,% to nearly 1 inch.
The flight of the short-winged locust is noiseless and short,
* This species closely resembles a Swedish insect which I have received under
the name of parallelus, Zetterstedt ; but is evidently distinct from it.
150 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
but it leaps well. Great numbers of these insects are found in
our low meadows, in the perfect state, from the first of August
till the middle of October. They are easily distinguished from
other locusts by their short and narrow wings, by the yellow color
of the body beneath, and by the yellow legs and black knees.
Ill. TETRIX. Grouse-locust.
The Greeks applied the name of Tetrix to some kind of grouse,
probably the heath-cock of Europe, and Latreille adopted it for
a genus of locusts in which, perhaps, he fancied some resem-
blance to the bird in question. Linneus placed these locusts in
a division of his genus Gryllus which he called Bulla, a name
that ought to have been retained for them. ‘The principal dis-
tinguishing characters of the genus have already been given, and
I will only add that the body is broadest between the middle legs,
narrows gradually to a point behind, and very abruptly to the head,
which is much smaller than in the other locusts. ‘The wings are
large, forming nearly the quadrant of a circle, thin and delicate,
and scalloped on the edge ; when not in use they are folded be-
neath the projecting thorax. The four boring appendages of the
females are notched on their edges with fine teeth, like a saw.
Latreille and Serville have stated that the antenne consist of only
thirteen or fourteen joints ; but some of our native species have
twenty-two joints in the antenne. Upon this variation I would
arrange those now to be described in two groups.
I. Antenne 14-jointed ; eyes very prominent, with a projecting
ridge between them, formed by a horizontal extension of the flat top
of the head ; thorax prolonged beyond the extremity of the body.
1. Tetrix ornata. Ornamented grouse-locust.
Dark ash-colored ; a large white patch between four black
spots on the top of the thorax ; a white spot on the top of the
hind thighs ; thorax nearly or quite as long as the wings. Length
11 to ;* inch to the apex of the thorax.
This species varies in wanting the white spot on the top of the
thorax sometimes. It was first described by Mr. Say, under the
name of Acrydium ornatum.*
* American Entomology. Vol. I. Plate 5.
ORTHOPTERA. 151
2. Tetrix dorsalis. Red-spotted grouse-locust.
Rusty black, with ochre-yellow spots on the sides and legs, and
a large rust-red spot on the top of the thorax ; wings extending
beyond the apex of the thorax. Length } inch.
3. Tetrix quadrimaculata. Four-spotted grouse-locust.
Ash-colored or dark gray above, variegated with black ; four
velvet-black spots on the top of the thorax ; wings projecting
beyond the extremity of the thorax. Length from ;‘, to 5 of
an inch.
This is a shorter and thicker species than the ornamented
grouse-locust. It is not uncommon in pastures from the first of
May to the first of June.
4. Tetrix bilineata. 'Two-lined grouse-locust.
Ash-colored ; thorax paler, with a narrow angular whitish line,
on each side, extending from the head beyond the middle ; the
angular portion including a long blackish patch on each side ;
wings, in the male, rather shorter than the thorax, in the female
longer. Length from 5% to more than ,%, inch.
5. Tetrix sordida. Sordid grouse-locust.
Yellowish ash-colored ; thorax with minute elevated black
points; wings, in both sexes, rather longer than the thorax.
Length from 2, inch to nearly 3 inch.
I have taken this species both in May and September, and have
received a specimen from Dr. D. 8. C. H. Smith, of Sutton,
Massachusetts.
II. Antenne 22-jointed ; eyes hardly prominent, top of the head
not horizontal between them, but curving towards the front, with a
very slightly projecting ridge ; wings smaller than in those of the
preceding group.
6. Tetrix lateralis. Black-sided grouse-locust.
Pale brown; sides of the body blackish ; thorax yellowish
clay-colored, shorter than the wings, but longer than the body ;
wing-covers with a small white spot at the tips ; male with the
152 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
face and the edges of the lateral margins of the thorax yellow.
Length from ,°, to ;§ of an inch.
This species was first described by Mr. Say under the name of
Acrydium laterale*, I have taken it from the middle of April to
the middle of May. It varies in being darker above sometimes.
7. Tetrix parvipennis. Small-winged grouse-locust.
Dark brown ; sides blackish ; thorax’clay-colored or pale brown,
about as long as the body ; wing-covers with a small white spot
at the tips ; wings much shorter than the thorax ; male with the
face and the edges of the lateral margins of the thorax yellow.
Length from ,7, to more than 5%, inch.
This species is much shorter and thicker than the Tetrix late-
ralis. I have taken it in April and May, in the perfect state, and
have found the pup near the end of July.
The habits of the grouse-locusts are said to be absolutely the
same as those of other locusts. They seem however to be more
fond of heat, being generally found in grassy places, on banks, by
the sides of the road, and even on the naked sands, exposed to
the full influence of the sun throughout the day. They are ex-
tremely agile, and consequently very difficult to capture, for they
leap to an astonishing distance, considering their small size, being
moreover aided in this motion by their ample wings. ‘The young,
which are deprived of wings, are generally found about midsum-
mer, and are readily distinguished by the thorax, which is some-
what like a reversed boat, being furnished with a longitudinal
ridge or keel from one end to the other. ‘These little locusts are
analogous to the insects belonging to the genus Membracis in the
order HemipTeRA, which also are distinguished by a very large
thorax covering the whole of the upper side of the body, small
wing-covers, and have the faculty of making great leaps. Indeed
these two kinds of insects very naturally connect the orders Or-
thoptera and Hemiptera together.
After so much space has been devoted to an account of the
ravages of grasshoppers and locusts, and to the descriptions of the
insects themselves, perhaps it may be expected that the means of
* American Entomology. Vol. I. plate 5.
ORTHOPTERA. 153
checking and destroying them should be fully explained. The
naturalist, however, seldom has it in his power to put in practice
the various remedies which his knowledge or experience may
suggest. His proper province consists in examining the living
objects about him with regard to their structure, their scientific
arrangement, and their economy or history. In doing this, he
opens to others the way toa successful course of experiments, the
trial of which he is generally obliged to leave to those who are
more favorably situated for their performance.
In the South of France the people make a business, at certain
seasons of the year, of collecting locusts and their eggs, the latter
being turned out of the ground in little masses cemented and cov-
ered with a sort of gum in which they are enveloped by the in-
sects. Rewards are offered and paid for their collection, half a
franc being given for a kilogramme (about 2 Ib. 31 oz. avoirdu-
pois) of the insects, and a quarter of a franc for the same weight
of their eggs. At this rate twenty thousand francs were paid in
Marseilles, and twenty-five thousand in Arles, in the year 1613 ;
in 1824, five thousand five hundred and forty-two, and in 1825,
six thousand two hundred francs were paid in Marseilles. It is
stated that an active boy can collect from six to seven kilogram-
mes (or from 13 lb. 3 oz. 13.22 dr. to 15 lb. 7 oz. 2.09 dr.) of
eggs in one day. ‘The locusts are taken by means of a piece of
stout cloth, carried by four persons, two of whom draw it rapidly
along, so that the edge may sweep over the surface of the soil,
and the two others hold up the cloth behind at an angle of forty-
five degrees.* ‘This contrivance seems to operate somewhat like
a horse-rake, in gathering the insects into winrows or heaps, from
which they are speedily transferred to large sacks. A somewhat
similar plan has been successfully tried in this country, as appears
by an account extracted from the ‘¢ Portsmouth Journal,”’ and pub-
lished in the ‘‘ New-England Farmer.}”’ It is there stated that, in
July 1826, Mr. Arnold Thompson, of Epsom, New Hampshire,
caught, in one evening, between the hours of eight and twelve, in
his own and his neighbour’s grain fields, five bushels and three
* See Annales de la Société Entomologique de France. Vol. II. pp. 486 - 489.
t Vol. V. p. 5.
20
154 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
pecks of grasshoppers, or more properly locusts. ‘‘ His mode of
catching them was by attaching two sheets together, and fastening
them to a pole, which was used as the front part of the drag.
The pole extended beyond the width of the sheets, so as to admit
persons at both sides to draw it forward. At the sides of the
drag, braces extended from the pole to raise the back part consid-
erably from the ground, so that the grasshoppers could not es-
cape. After running the drag about a dozen rods with rapidity,
the braces were taken out, and the sheets doubled over; the
grasshoppers were then swept from each end towards the centre
of the sheet, where was left an opening to the mouth of a bag
which held about half a bushel; when deposited and tied up, the
drag was again opened and ready to proceed. When this bag
was filled so as to become burthensome, (their weight is about
the same as that of the same measure of corn,) the bag was open-
ed into a larger one, and the grasshoppers received into a new
deposit. ‘The drag can be used only in the evening, when the
grasshoppers are perched on the top of the grain. His manner of
destroying them was by dipping the large bags into a kettle of
boiling water. When boiled, they had a reddish appearance, and
made a fine feast for the farmer’s hogs.”? When these insects are
very prevalent on our salt marshes, it will be advisable to mow
the grass early, so as to secure a crop before it has suffered much
loss. The time for doing this will be determined by data fur-
nished in the foregoing pages, where it will be seen that the most
destructive species come to maturity during the latter part of
July. If then, the marshes are mowed about the first of July, the
locusts, being at that time small and not provided with wings, will
be unable to migrate, and will consequently perish on the ground
for the want of food, while a tolerable crop of hay will be secured,
and the marshes will suffer less from the insects during the follow-
ing summer. ‘This, like all other preventive measures, must be
generally adopted, in order to prove effectual ; for it will avail a
farmer but little to take preventive measures on his own land, if
his neighbours, who are equally exposed and interested, neglect
to do the same. Among the natural means which seem to be
appointed to keep these insects in check, violent winds and
storms may be mentioned, which sometimes sweep them off in
ORTHOPTERA. 155
great swarms, and cast them into the sea. Vast numbers are
drowned by the high tides that frequently inundate our marshes.
They are subject to be attacked by certain thread-like brown or
blackish worms>(£i/aria), resembling in appearance those called
horse-hair eels (Gordius). Ihave taken three or four of these
animals out of the body of a single locust. ‘They are also much
infested by little red mites, belonging apparently to the genus
Ocypete ; these so much weaken the insects by sucking the juices
from their bodies, as to hasten their death. ‘Ten or a dozen of
these mites will frequently be found pertinaciously adhering to the
body of a locust, beneath its wing-covers and wings.
DIPTERA. 431
strong pickle, and the crop was comparatively free from the fly.
In 1839 he tried this experiment again, but not with similar suc-
cess. In 1840 he sowed without previously soaking the grain,
and his crop was uninjured. He says, moreover, that he has
uniformly found the grain most affected in spots, usually near the
edges of the field, where long grass and weeds grew, which af-
forded shelter and protection to the fly. This fact, he thinks,
affords another proof, that the egg is not deposited in the grain.
I regret that my limits will not permit me to extract the whole of
Mr. Bergen’s interesting remarks, which may be found in number
eight, of the eighth volume of ‘‘ The Cultivator,”’ published in
Albany in August, 1841. The best modes of preventing the
ravages of the Hessian fly are thus stated by Mr. Herrick.*
*¢ 'T’he stouter varieties of wheat ought always to be chosen, and
the land should be kept in good condition. If fall wheat is sown
late, some of the eggs will be avoided, but risk of winter-killing
the plants will be incurred. If cattle are permitted to graze the
wheat fields during the fall, they will devour many of the eggs.
A large number of the pupe may be destroyed by burning the
wheat-stubble immediately after harvest, and then ploughing and
harrowing the land. ‘This method will undoubtedly do much
good. As the Hessian fly also lays its eggs, to some extent,
on rye and barley, these crops should be treated in a similar man-
Her?
‘It is found that luxuriant crops more often escape injury
than those that are thin and light. Steeping the grain and rolling
it in plaster or lime tends to promote a rapid and vigorous growth,
and will therefore prove beneficial. Sowing the fields with wood
ashes, in the proportion of two bushels to an acre, in the autumn,
and again in the first and last weeks in April, and as late in the
month of May as the sower can pass over the wheat without in-
jury to it, has been found useful.t Favorable reports have been
made upon the practice of allowing sheep to feed off the crop
late in the autumn, and it has also been recommended to turn
them into the fields again in the spring, in order to retard the
growth of the plant till after the fly has disappeared.t ‘Too
*¢¢ American Journal of Science,’ Vol. XLI., p. 158.
t * Gultivator,” Vol. V., p. 59.
4 Cultivator,” Vol. IV., p. 110, and Vol. V., p. 49.
432 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
much cannot be said in favor of a judicious management of the
soil, feeding off the crop by cattle in the autumn, and burning
the stubble after harvest ; a proper and general attention to which
will materially lessen the evils arising from the depredations of
this noxious insect.
Fortunately our efforts will be aided by a host of parasitical in-
sects, which are found to prey upon the eggs, the larve, and the
pupe of the Hessian fly. Mr. Herrick states,* that, in this part
of the country, a very large proportion, probably more than nine
tenths, of every generation of this fly is thus destroyed. One of
these parasites was made known by Mr. Say, in the first volume
of the ‘‘ Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila-
delphia”’ ; and the interesting discovery of three more kinds is
due to the exertions of Mr. Herrick. They are all minute Hy-
menopterous insects, similar in their habits to the true Ichneu-
mon-flies. The chief parasite of the pupa is the Eurytoma de-
structor (Ceraphron destructor, of Say), a shining black four-
winged fly, about one tenth of an inch in length. This has often
been mistaken for the Hessian fly, from being seen in wheat-
fields, in vast numbers, and from its being found to come out of
the dried larva skin of that fly. In the month of June, when the
maggot of the Hessian fly has taken the form of a flax-seed, the
Eurytoma pierces it, through the sheath of the leaf, and lays an
egg in the minute hole thus made. From this egg is hatched a
little maggot, which devours the pupa of the Hessian fly, and
then changes to a chrysalis within the shell of the latter, through
which it finally eats its way, after being transformed to a fly.
This last change takes place both in the autumn and in the follow-
ing spring. Some of the females of this or of a closely allied
species of Eurytoma come forth from the shells of the Hessian .
fly, without wings, or with only very short and imperfect wings,
in which form they somewhat resemble minute ants. ‘Two more
parasites, which Mr. Herrick has not yet described, also destroy
the Hessian fly, while the latter is in the pupa or flax-seed state.
Mr. Herrick says, that the egg-parasite of the Hessian fly is a
species of Platygaster, that it is very abundant in the autumn,
* « American Journal of Science,” Vol. XLI., p. 156.
DIPTERA. 433
when it lays its own eggs, four or five together, in a single egg of
the Hessian fly. This, it appears, does not prevent the latter
from hatching, but the maggot of the Hessian fly is unable to go
through its transformation, and dies after taking the flax-seed
form. Meanwhile its intestine foes are hatched, come to their
growth, spin themselves little brownish cocoons within the skin
of their victim, and, in due time, are changed to winged insects,
and eat their way out. Such are some of the natural means,
provided by a benevolent Providence, to check the ravages of
the destructive Hessian fly. If we are humiliated by the reflec-
tion, that the Author of the universe should have made even small
and feeble insects the instruments of His power, and that He
should occasionally permit them to become the scourges of our
race, ought we not to admire His wisdom in the formation of
the still more humble agents that are appointed to arrest the work
of destruction.
In the years 1829 and 1830 several communications were pub-
lished in the eighth volume of Fessenden’s ‘‘ New England Far-
mer,” * respecting a disease of barley straw, produced by the
punctures of insects. The first account of this disease, that has
fallen under my notice, is contained in an extract from a letter,
dated August 16th, 1829, from the Honorable John Merrill, of
Newburyport, to Mr. Fessenden ; wherein it is stated, that the
barley, in the neighbourhood of Newburyport, yielded only a
very small crop; on some farms not much more than the seed
sown. Most of the stalks were found to have a number of small
worms within them, near to the second joint, and had become
hardened in the part attacked, from the interruption of the cir-
culation of the sap. During several years previous to this date,
the barley crops, in various parts of Essex and Middlesex coun-
ties, were more or less-injured in the same way; and, in some
places, the cultivation of this grain was given up in conse-
quence thereof. It was supposed that the insects, producing
this disease, were imported from Bremen, or some other port in
the north of Europe, in some barley that was sown in the vicinity
of Newbury, three or four years before 1829.t The worms or
* Pages 43, 138, 217, 299, 330, and 402. Also Vol. IX., p. 2,and Vol. X., p. 11.
} “New England Farmer,” Vol. VIII., p. 217.
55
434 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
maggots, were found, by John M. Gourgas, Esq., of Weston,
Massachusetts, to be transformed to small flies, which were
thought, by some persons, to be the same as the Hessian flies.
In the summer of 1851, myriads of these flies were found alive
in straw beds in Gloucester ; the straw having been taken from
the fields the year before. An opinion at that time prevailed,
that the troublesome humors, wherewith many persons were then
afflicted, were occasioned by the bites of these flies ; and it is
stated that the straw beds in Lexington, being found to be in-
fested with the same insects, were generally burnt.* If any in-
convenience really arose from sleeping on these beds, it is far
more likely to have been occasioned by the bites or stings of
parasitical insects, than by those of any insect like the Hessian
fly. That vast numbers of parasitical insects, closely resembling
the Eurytoma destructor, come out of the diseased straw will be
shown hereafter. Mr. Gourgas observes,} that when the barley
is about eight or ten inches high, the effects of the disease in
it begin to be visible by a sudden check in the growth of the
plants, and the yellow color of their lower leaves. If the butts
of the straw are now examined, they will be found to be irregu-
larly swollen, and discolored, between the second and third
joints, and, instead of being hollow, are rendered solid, hard, and
brittle, so that the stem above the diseased part is impoverished,
and seldom produces any grain. Suckers, however, shoot out
below, and afterwards yield a partial crop, seldom exceeding one
half the usual quantity of grain. ‘It is evident,’? says Mr.
Gourgas, ‘‘ that the soundness of the grain, raised in a blighted
field, is not affected thereby in the slightest degree ; the seed
(eggs) to perpetuate the disease from year to year is lodged in
the straw, which, when hatched, are the worms’ before men-
tioned. Dr. Andrew Nichols, of Danvers, states, { that these
worms are about one tenth of an inch in length, and of a yellow
or straw color ; and that, in the month of November, they ap-
peared to have passed to the chrysalis state. ‘They live through
the winter unchanged in the straw, many of them in the stubble in
* «¢ New England Farmer,” Vol. X , p. 11. | The same, Vol. VIII, p. 299.
} The same, p. 138.
DIPTERA. 435
the field, while others are carried away when the grain is harvested.
When the barley is threshed, numerous small pieces of diseased
straw, too hard to be broken by the flail, will be found among the
grain. Some of these may be separated by the winnowing ma-
chine, but many others are too large and heavy to be winnowed
out, and remain with the grain, from which they can only be re-
moved by the slow process of picking them out by hand.
In the winter of 1829, Cheever Newhall, Esq. furnished me
with a few pieces of diseased barley straw, each of which con-
tained several, small, whitish maggots. Since that time this af-
fection of the barley has not again fallen under my notice, though
I have reason to think that it continues to prevail in many parts
of Massachusetts. ‘The following account of my observations on
the insects in the barley straw was published in the ‘¢‘ New Eng-
land Farmer,” * in July, 1830. Each maggot was imbedded in
the thickened and solid substance of the stem, in a little longitudi-
nal hollow, of the shape of its own body ; and its presence was
known by an oblong swelling upon the surface. In some pieces
of straw the swellings were so numerous as greatly to disfigure
the stem, the circulation in which must have been very much
checked if not destroyed. arly in the following spring these
maggots entered the pupa or chrysalis state, and on the fifteenth
of June the perfected insects began to make their escape through
minute perforations in the straw, which they gnawed for this pur-
pose. Seven of these little holes were counted in a piece of
straw only half an inch in length. ‘The insects continued to re-
lease themselves from their confinement till the fifth of July, after
which no more were seen. Much to my surprise they proved
to be minute, four-winged Ichneumon-flies, which are parasitical,
or prey, in the larva state, on the bodies of other insects. I
had hoped to have obtained the true culprits, the cause of the
disease, supposing that the latter were allied to the Hessian fly ;
but these little insects, while in the larva state, had destroyed
them all, and, having finished their appointed task, and undergone
their tranformations, now made their escape from the straw in the
winged form. The scientific name, given to this newly dis-
* Vol. IX., p. 2
436 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
covered parasite, was Eurytoma Horde, so called from Hordeum,
the Latin name for barley. It is very much like the parasite
(Eurytoma destructor) of the Hessian fly, described by Mr.
Say, but is rather larger, of a jet black color, except the legs,
which are blackish, with pale yellow joints. The head and tho-
rax are somewhat rough, and slightly hairy ; the hind-body is
smooth and polished. The female is thirteen hundredths of an
inch long ; the male is rather smaller. It often moves by little
leaps, but the hindmost thighs are not thickened. This minute
insect is to be reckoned among our friends, being appointed, by
an all-wise and provident Creator, to check the increase of the
destructive fly that attacks our barley. ‘Though disappointed in
my attempts to obtain the latter, in its perfected state, I hail with
pleasure the appearance of its mortal enemy.
Although the barley-fly has not yet been seen by me, there
does not exist the smallest doubt in my mind that it is a two-
winged gnat, like the Hessian fly and wheat-fly. Any one, who
will compare the history of the two latter with what is known of
the barley insect, will arrive at the same conclusion. Both the
Hessian fly and the barley insect attack the culms or straw of
grain, which they injure to a great extent; and both have a simi-
lar four-winged parasite appropriated to them. In addition to
this statement, the following conjectures, in default of facts, may
be offered. It is probable that the barley-fly is a species of Ce-
cidomyia, distinct from the Hessian and the wheat flies. That it
is of the same genus may be conjectured from its attacking simi-
lar kinds of plants, and from its having a similar parasite. ‘The
maggots of the Hessian fly live between the sheathing bases of
the lower leaves of the culms of the wheat ; but the barley in-
sects are found within the stems themselves, and lie concealed
beneath the thickened epidermis or outer skin of the straw.
Upon this essential difference in the mode of attack I ground my
belief that the two insects are not identical ; and this conjecture
is still further strengthened by the fact, that the parasite of the
barley insect is not the same species as that of the Hessian fly.
The barley midge (Cecidomyza? cerealis) of Europe, is said to
be very injurious, in some parts of Germany, to barley and spelt,
in the straw of which the larve live in considerable numbers to-
DIPTERA. 437
gether, and by their attacks cause the stems to become warty,
notched, and crooked, and afterwards to perish. But the ac-
counts, given of this kind of insect by the Baron Kollar * and
others, do not entirely agree with the little that is known respect-
ing our insect.
We have reason to believe, that the maggots of the barley-fly
remain in the straw during the winter, and that they take the
winged form in the spring, in season to lay their eggs on the
young barley. It is therefore important to prevent them from
completing their transformations. This may be done by burning
the stubble, which contains many of the insects, in the autumn ;
by destroying, in the same way, all the straw and refuse which is
unfit for fodder ; and by keeping the grain in close vessels over
one year, whereby the insects, which are disclosed from the
small heavy »pieces of straw remaining unwinnowed from the
grain, will perish without an opportunity to escape.
The wheat crops in England and Scotland often suffer se-
verely from the depredations of the maggots of a very small gnat,
called the wheat-fly, or the Cecidomyia Tritict of Mr. Kirby.
This insect seems to have been long known in England, as ap-
pears from the following extract from a letter, by Mr. Christo-
pher Gullet, written in 1771, and published in the ‘ Philosophi-
eal Transactions ” for 1772. ‘* What the farmers call the yel-
lows in wheat, and which they consider as a kind of mildew, is,
in fact, occasioned by a small yellow fly, with blue wings, about
the size of a gnat. ‘This blows in the ear of the corn, and pro-
duces a worm, almost invisible to the naked eye ; but, being seen
through a pocket microscope, it appears a large yellow maggot,
of the color and gloss of amber, and is so prolific that I distinctly
counted forty-one living yellow maggots in the husk of one single
grain of wheat, a number sufficient to eat up and destroy the
corn in a whole ear. One of those yellow flies laid at least eight
or ten eggs, of an oblong shape, on my thumb, only while carry-
ing by the wing across three or four ridges.”? In 1795, the his-
tory of this insect was investigated by Mr. Marsham,} and since
* Treatise, p. 124.
t “ Transactions of the Linnean Society,” Vol. II., p. 142, and Vol. IV., p. 224.
438 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
that time Mr. Kirby,* Mr. Gorrie, and Mr. Shirreff,t have also
turned their attention to it. ‘The investigations of these gentle-
men have become very interesting to us, on account of the re-
cent appearance, in our own country, and the extensive ravages,
of an insect apparently identical with the Kuropean wheat-fly.
The following account of the latter will serve to show how far
the European and American wheat-flies agree in their essential
characters and in their habits. The European wheat-fly some-
what resembles a musquito in form, but is very small, being only
about one tenth of an inch long. Its body is orange-colored.
Its two wings are transparent, and changeable in color ; they are
narrow at the base, rounded at the tip, and are fringed with little
hairs on the edges. Its long antennz, or horns, consist, in the
female, of twelve little bead-like joints, each encircled with
minute hairs ; those of the male will probably be found to have a
greater number of joints. ‘Towards the end of June, or when
the wheat is in blossom, these flies appear in swarms in the
wheat-fields during the evening, at which time they are very ac-
tive. The females generally lay their eggs before nine o’clock,
at night, thrusting them, by means of a long, retractile tube in the
end of their bodies, within the chaffy scales of the flowers, in
clusters of from two to fifteen, or more. By day they remain at
rest on the stems and leaves of the plants, where they are shaded
from the heat of the sun. They continue to appear and lay their
eggs throughout a period of thirty-nine days. ‘The eggs are ob-
long, transparent, and of a pale buff color, and hatch in eight or
ten days after they are laid. The young insects, produced from
them, are little footless maggots, tapering towards the head, and
blunt at the hinder extremity, with the rings of the body some-
what wrinkled and bulging at the sides. ‘They are at first per-
fectly transparent and colorless, but soon take a deep yellow or
orange color. They do not travel from one floret to another,
but move in a wriggling manner, and by sudden jerks of the body,
when disturbed. As many as forty-seven have been counted in
* ¢ Transactions of the Linnean Society,” Vol. 1V., p. 230, and Vol. V., p. 96.
¢ Coudon’s ‘‘ Magazine of Natural History,” Vol. II., p. 323, and 448.
t See also my article on wheat insects in the “ New England Farmer,” for
March 31, 1841, Vol. XIX., p. 306.
DIPTERA. 439
a single floret. It is supposed, that they live at first upon the
pollen, and thereby prevent the fertilization of the grain. They
are soon seen, however, to crowd around the lower part of the
germ, and there appear to subsist on the matter destined to have
formed the grain. ‘The latter, in consequence of their depreda-
tions, becomes shrivelled and abortive ; and, in some seasons, a
considerable part of the crop is thereby rendered worthless.
The maggots, when fully grown, are nearly one eighth of an inch
long. Mr. Marsham and Mr. Kirby found some of them changed
to pup, within the ears of the wheat, and from these they ob-
tained the fly early in September. ‘The pupa, represented by
them, is rather smaller than the full-grown maggot, of a brownish
yellow color, and of an oblong oval form, tapering at each end.
The pupe found in the ears were very few in number, scarcely
one to fifty of the maggots. Hence Mr. Kirby supposes, that
the latter are not ordinarily transformed to flies before the spring.
Towards the end of September he carefully took off the skin of
one of them, and found that the insect within still retained the
maggot form, and conjectures that the pupa is not usually com-
plete until the following spring. According to Mr. Gorrie, the
maggots quit the ears of the wheat by the first of August, descend
to the ground, and go into it to the depth of half an inch. That
they remain here unchanged through the winter, and finish their
transformations, and come out of the ground in the winged form,
in the spring, when the wheat is about to blossom, is rendered
probable from the great number of the flies found by Mr. Shir-
reff, in the month of June, in all the fields where wheat had been
raised the year before. ‘The increase of these flies is somewhat
checked by the attacks of three different parasites, which have
been described by Mr. Kirby.
An insect, resembling the foregoing in its destructive habits,
and known, in its maggot form, by the name of ‘the grain-
worm,”’ has been observed, for several years, in the northern
and eastern parts of the United States, and in Canada. It seems
by some to have been mistaken for the grain-weevil, the Angou-
mois grain-moth, and the Hessian fly ; and its history has been
so confounded with that of another insect, also called the grain-
worm, in some parts of the country, that it is difficult to ascer-
440 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
tain the amount of injury done by either of them alone. The
wheat-fly is said to have been first seen in America about the
year 1828,* in the northern part of Vermont, and on the borders
of Lower Canada. From these places its ravages have gradually
extended, in various directions, from year to year. A consider-
able part of Upper Canada, of New York, New Hampshire, and
of Massachusetts have been visited by it; and, in 1834, it ap-
peared in Maine, which it has traversed, in an easterly course, at
the rate of twenty or thirty miles a year. The country, over
which it has spread, has continued to suffer more or less from
its alarming depredations, the loss by which has been found to
vary from about one tenth part to nearly the whole of the annual
crop of wheat; nor has the insect entirely disappeared in any
place, till it has been starved out by a change of agriculture, or
by the substitution of late-sown spring wheat for the other va-
rieties of grain. Many communications on this destructive insect
have appeared in ‘‘ The Genesee Farmer,” and in ‘‘ The Culti-
”? some of them written by the late Judge Buel, by whom,
vator,
as well as by the editors of ‘‘ The Yankee Farmer,’’ rewards
were offered for the discovery of the means to prevent its rav-
ages. Premiums have also been proposed, for the same end, by
the ‘* Kennebec County Agricultural Society,’ in Maine, which
were followed by the publication, in ‘‘ The Maine Farmer,” of
three ‘¢ Essays on the Grain Worm,” presented to that Society.
These essays were reprinted in the seventeenth volume of the
‘¢ New England Farmer,’’ wherein, as well as in some other vol-
umes of the same work, several other articles on this insect may
be found. From these sources, and, more especially, from some
interesting letters wherewith I have been favored by a lady lately
resident in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, the foregoing and fol-
lowing statements are chiefly derived. A continued series of
observations, conducted with care, and with a due regard to dates,
is still wanted to complete the history of the various insects
which are injurious to grain in this country. Could Mr. Herrick,
* Judge Buel’s Report in ‘‘ The Cultivator,” Vol. VI., p. 26; and “ New Eng-
land Farmer,’ Vol. 1X., p. 42. Mr. Jewett says, that its fitst appearance in
western Vermont occurred in 1820. See “ New England Farmer,” Vol. XIX.,
p. 301.
DIPTERA. 441
who is so well qualified for the task, be induced to devote the
necessary time and attention to this subject, we have reason to
think that the interests of science and of agriculture would be
greatly promoted thereby.
The American wheat-insect, in its winged form, has not yet
fallen under my notice. It is stated by Judge Buel, Mrs. Gage,
and others, to agree exactly with the description of the Euro-
pean wheat-fly (Cectdomyza Tritict), being a very small orange-
colored gnat, with long slender legs, and two transparent wings,
which reflect the tints of the rainbow. Immense swarms of these
orange-colored gnats infest fields of grain towards the last of June.
While the sun shines they conceal themselves among the leaves
and weeds near the ground. ‘They take wing during the morning
and evening twilight, and also in cloudy weather, when they lay
their eggs in the opening flowers of the grain. New swarms con-
tinue to come forth in succession, till the end of July ; but Mr.
Buel says that the principal deposit of eggs is made in the first
half of July, when late sown winter-wheat and early sown spring-
wheat are in the blossom or milk. The flies are not confined to
wheat alone, but deposit in barley, rye, and oats, when these
plants are in flower at the time of their appearance. The eggs
hatch in about eight days after they are laid, when the little yellow
maggots or grain-worms may be found within the chaffy scales of
the grain. Being hatched at various times during a period of
four or five weeks, they do not all arrive at maturity together.
Mrs. Gage informs me that they appear to come to their growth
in twelve or fourteen days. Specimens of these maggots, which
she has sent to me, were found to agree, in every respect, with
the descriptions and figures of those of the European wheat-fly.
They do not exceed one eighth of an inch in length, and are not
provided with feet. From two to fifteen or twenty have been
found within the husk of a single grain, and sometimes in every
husk in the ear. After a shower of rain they have been seen in
such countless numbers on the beards of the wheat, as to give a
yellow color to the whole field.* These insects prey on the
grain in the milky state, and their ravages cease when the grain
\
* “ New England Farmer,” Vol. XII., p. 60.
56
442 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
becomes hard. ‘They do not burrow within the kernels, but live
on the pollen and on the soft matter of the grain, which they
probably extract from the base of the germs. It appears, from
various statements, that very early and very late wheat escape
with comparatively little injury ; the amount of which, in other
cases, depends upon the condition of the grain at the time when
the maggots are hatched. When the maggots begin their depre-
dations soon after the blossoming of the grain, they do the greatest
injury ; for the kernels never fill out at all. Pinched or partly
filled kernels are the consequence of their attacks when the grain
is more advanced. The hulls of the impoverished kernels will
always be found split open on the convex side, so as to expose
the embryo. This is caused by the drying and shrinking of the
hull, after a portion of the contents thereof has been sucked out
by the maggots. ‘Towards the end of July and in the beginning
of August the full-grown maggots leave off eating and become
sluggish and torpid, preparatory to moulting their skins. This
process, which has been alluded to by Judge Buel and some other
writers, has been carefully observed by Mrs. Gage, who has.sent
to me the maggots before and after moulting, together with some
of their cast skins. It takes place in the following manner. The
body of the maggot gradually shrinks in length within its skin, and
becomes more flattened and less pointed, as may easily be seen
through the delicate transparent skin, which retains nearly its
original form and dimensions, and extends a little beyond the in-
cluded insect at each end. The torpid state lasts only a few
days, after which the insect casts off its skin, leaving the latter
entire, except a little rent in one end of it. This cast skin is
exceedingly thin, and colorless, and, through a microscope, is
seen to be marked with eleven transverse lines. After shedding
its skin, the maggot recovers its activity, and writhes about as at
first, but takes no food. It is shorter, somewhat flattened, and
more obtuse than before, and is of a deeper yellow color, with an
oblong greenish spot in the middle of the body. Within two or
three days after moulting, the maggots either drop of their own
accord, or are shaken out of the ears by the wind, and fall to the
ground. They do not let themselves down by threads, for they
are not able to spin. Nearly all of them disappear before the
*
DIPTERA. 443
middle of August ; and they are very rarely found in the grain at
the time of harvest. Some persons have stated that they are
transformed to flies in the ears of the grain, having probably mis-
taken the cast skins found therein for the shells of the chrysalis
or pupa. We have good reason for believing that the maggots
burrow in the ground, and remain there unchanged, in a torpid
state, through the winter. Whether, on the approach of spring,
they again cast off their skins, in order to become pupe, or
whether the skin hardens and remains as a shell to protect the
pupa, has not been determined ; but it is probable that the skin
is not cast off till the insect comes forth in the winged form.
The last change seems to occur in June and July, when great
numbers of the flies have been seen, apparently coming from the
ground, in fields where grain was raised the year before.
Several cases of the efficacy of fumigation in preventing the
depredations of these insects are recorded in our agricultural
papers.* Jor this purpose brimstone has been used, in the pro-
portion of one pound to every bushel of seed sown. Strips of
woollen cloth, dipped in melted brimstone, and fastened to sticks
in different parts of the field, and particularly on the windward
side, are set on fire, for several evenings in succession, at the
time when the grain is in blossom; the smoke and fumes thus
penetrate the standing grain, and prove very offensive or destruc-
tive to the flies, which are laying their eggs. A thick smoke
from heaps of burning weeds, sprinkled with brimstone, around
the sides of the field, has also been recommended. Lime or
ashes, strown over the grain when in blossom, has, in some cases,
appeared to protect the crop ; and the Rev. Henry Colman, the
Commissioner for the Agricultural Survey of Massachusetts, says
that this preventive, if not infallible, may be relied on with strong
confidence.{ For every-acre of grain, from one peck to a bushel
of newly slacked lime or of good wood ashes will be required ;
and this should be scattered over the plants when they are wet
with dew or rain. ‘T'wo or three applications of it have some-
times been found necessary. Whether it be possible to destroy
* Among others, see ‘* The Cultivator,” Vol. V., p. 136.
t “Third Report on the Agriculture of Massachusetts,’’ p. 67.
444 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
the maggots after they have left the grain, and have betaken them-
selves to their winter quarters, just below the surface of the
ground, remains to be proved. Some persons have advised
burning the stubble, and ploughing up the ground, soon after the
grain is harvested, in order to kill the maggots, or to bury them
so deeply that they could not make their escape after they were
transformed to flies. Perhaps thoroughly liming the soil before
it is ploughed, may contribute to the destruction of the insects.
It is stated that our crops may be sayed from injury by sowing
early in the autumn or late in the spring. By the first, it is sup-
posed that the grain will become hard before many of the flies
make their appearance ; and by the latter, the plants do not come
into blossom until the flies have disappeared. In those parts of
New England where these insects have done the greatest injury,
the cultivation of fall-sown or winter grain has been given up ;
and this, for some years to come, will be found the safest course.
The proper time for sowing in the spring will vary with the lati-
tude and elevation of the place, and the forwardness of the season.
From numerous observations, made in this part of the country, it
appears that grain sown after the fifteenth or twentieth of May
generally escapes the ravages of these destructive insects. Late
sowing has almost entirely banished the wheat-flies from those
parts of Vermont where they first appeared ; and there is good
reason to expect that these depredators will be completely starved
out and exterminated, when the means above recommended have
been generally adopted and persevered in, for several years in
succession.
Mrs. Gage has discovered another pernicious insect in the
ears of growing wheat. It seems to agree with the accounts
of the Thrips cerealium, which sometimes infests wheat, in
Europe, to a great extent. ‘This insect belongs to the order
Hemiptera. In its larva state, it is smaller than the wheat
maggot, is orange-colored, and is provided with six legs, two
antennz, and a short beak, and is very nimble in its motions. «It
is supposed to suck out the juices of the seed, thus causing the
latter to shrink, and become what the English farmers call pun-
gled. This little pest may probably be destroyed by giving the
¢ grain a thorough coating of slacked lime.
DIPTERA. 445
Our agricultural papers contain some accounts of an insect or
of insects much larger than the maggots of the wheat-fly, growing
to the length of three eighths of an inch or more, and devouring
the grain in the ear, and after it is harvested. The insects to
which [I allude have received the names of wheat-worms, gray
worms, and brown weevils ; and, although these different names
may possibly refer to two or more distinct species, I am inclined
to think that all of them are intended for only one kind of insect.
Sometimes this has also been called the grain-worm ; whereby it
becomes somewhat difficult to separate the accounts of its history
and depredations from those of the Ceczdomyia, or wheat-insect,
described in the foregoing pages. It may, however, very safely
be asserted that the wheat-worm of the western part of New
York and of the northern part of Pennsylvania is entirely distinct
from the maggots of our wheat-fly, and that it does not belong to
the same order of insects. From the description of it, published
in the sixth volume of ‘‘ The Cultivator,” * by Mr. Willis Gay-
lord, this depredator appears to be a caterpillar, or span-worm,
being provided with twelve feet, six of which are situated hear
each extremity ofits body. Like other span-worms, or Geome-
ters, it has the power of spinning and suspending itself by a
thread. Mr. Gaylord says that it is of a yellowish brown or
butternut color ; that it not only feeds on the kernel in the milky
state, but also devours the germinating end of the ripened grain,
without, however, burying itself within the hull ; and that it is
found in great numbers, in the chaff, when the grain is threshed.
He says, moreover, that it has been known for years in the west-
ern part of New York ; and that it is not so much the new ap-
pearance of this insect, as its increase, which has caused the
present alarm respecting it. The transformations and the appear-
ance of this insect in its perfected state have not yet been de-
scribed. Mr. Nathaniel Sill, of Warren, Pennsylvania, has given
a somewhat different description of it.— On threshing his winter-
wheat, immediately after harvest, he found among the screenings
a vast army of this new enemy. He says that it was a caterpillar,
about three eighths of an inch in length, when fully grown, and
* Page 43. t “ The Cultivator,” Vol. VI., p. 21.
446 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
apparently of a straw-color ; but, when seen through a magnifier,
was found to be striped lengthwise with orange and cream color.
Its head was dark brown. It was provided with legs, could
suspend itself by a thread, and resembled a caterpillar in all its
motions. ‘This insect ought not to be confounded with the
smaller worms found by Mr. Sill in the upper joints of the stems
of the wheat, and within the kernels, until their identity has been
proved by further observations. It appears highly probable that
Mr. Gaylord’s and Mr. Sill’s wheat-caterpillars are the same,
notwithstanding the difference in their color. Insects, of the
same size as these caterpillars, and of a brownish color, have
been found in various parts of Maine, where they have done much
injury to the grain. Unlike the maggots of the wheat-fly, with
which they have been confounded, they remain depredating upon
the ears of the grain until after the time of harvest. Immense
numbers of them have been seen upon barn-floors, where the
grain has been threshed, but they soon crawl away, and conceal
themselves in crevices, where they probably undergo their trans-
formations. Mr. Elijah Wood, of Winthrop, Maine, says that
the chrysalis has been observed in the chaff late in the fall.* A
gentleman, from the southern part of Penobscot county, informs
me that he winnowed out nearly a bushel of these insects from
his wheat, in the autumn of 1840; and he confirms the statements
of others, that these worms devour the grain when in the milk,
and also after it has become hard. In the autumn of 1838, the
Rev. Henry Colman observed the same insect in the town of
Egremont, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. It was separ-
ated from the wheat, in great quantities, by threshing and win-
nowing the grain.} ‘These wheat-worms, or wheat-caterpillars,
as they ought to be called, if the foregoing accounts really refer
to the same kind of insect, are supposed by some persons to be
identical with the clover-worms, which have been found in clover,
in various parts of the country, and have often been seen spinning
down from lofts and mows where clover has been stowed away.t
* «* New England Farmer,” Vol. XVII., p. 73.
t ‘Second Report on the Agriculture of Massachusetts,” p. 99.
t ‘¢ New England Farmer,” Vol. XVIL., p. 73.
DIPTERA. a 447
A striking similarity between them has been noticed by a writer
in the ‘* Genesee Farmer.””* Stephen Sibley, Esq., informs
me that he observed the clover-worms, in Hopkinton, New
Hampshire, many years ago, suspended in such numbers by their
threads from a newly gathered clover mow, and from the timbers
of the building, as to be very troublesome and offensive to
persons passing through the barn. He also states, that if he
recollects rightly, these insects were of a brown color, and about
half an inch long. Iam sorry to leave the history of these wheat-
worms unfinished ; but hope that the foregoing statements, which
have been carefully collected from various sources, will tend to
remove some of the difficulties wherewith the subject has been
heretofore involved. ‘The contradictory statements and unsatis-
factory discussions, that have appeared in some of our papers,
respecting the ravages of these worms and the maggots of the
wheat-fly, might have been avoided, if the writers on these in-
sects had always been careful to give a correct and full descrip-
tion of the insects in question. Had this been done, a crawling
worm or caterpillar, of a brownish color, three eighths or half of
an inch in length, probably provided with legs, and capable of
suspending itself by a silken thread of its own spinning, would
. never have been mistaken for a writhing maggot, of a deep yellow
color, only one tenth of an inch long, destitute of legs, and unable
to spin a thread. When the transformations of the former are
known, and the insect is obtained in its winged or perfected state,
it will undoubtedly turn out to be a very different creature from
the tiny, orange-colored wheat-fly. Until its transformations are
ascertained, it will be of little use to speculate on the means to
be used against its ravages.
* « New England Farmer,” Vol. XVII., p. 164.
448 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Havine now arrived at the end of my work, I have only to add
a few remarks by way of conclusion. It has been my design to
present to the reader a sketch of the scientific arrangement of the
principal insects which are injurious to vegetation, not only in
New England, but in most of the United States. The descrip-
tions of the insects, being drawn up in familiar language, will
enable him to recognise them, when seen abroad, in all their forms
and disguises. The hints and practical details, scattered through-
out the work, it is hoped will serve as a guide to the selection
and the application of the proper remedies for the depredations
of the insects described. I regret that it has not been in my
power to do full justice to this important subject, which is far
from having been exhausted. My object, however, will have
been fully attained, if this treatise, notwithstanding its many faults
and imperfections, should be found to afford any facilities for the
study of our native insects, and should lead to the discovery
and the general adoption of efficient means for checking their
ravages.
INDEX.
Abdomen, :
Achemon hawk-moth,
Acheta abbreviata, : .
nigra,
vittata,
Achetade,
Acridium hemipterum,
sulphureum,
tuberculatum,
Acronycta,
Acronyctians (Acronyetade),
Acrydium, 139,
a alutaceum, é
——--—— Americanum,
femorale,
femur-rubrum,
flavo-vittatum,
laterale,
—--—— marginatum,
olivaceum,
ornatum,
peregrinum,
--—— viridifasciatum,
Ageria Cucurbite,
- exitiosa,
——- Pyni,
- tipuliformis,
/Egerians (Aigeriade), .
Aglossa pinguinalis,
Agriotes, .
Agriotidians (Agrotidide),
Agrotis equa, 0 A
- agricola,
- aquilina, :
- devastator, .
- inermis,
- latens, é
———- messoria, . ne
- ocellina,
- segetum,
- suffusa,
———- telifera,
- tessellata,
- Tritici, 3 5
135,
232,
Alaus, . i
Alder Sphinx,
Aleppo galls,
Alucita, é : 2
~ cerealella,
Alucite,
American blight,
57
«* + “ "e yi
gf
e
Page
Ampelopsis. See Creeper.
Anacampsis cerealella, 361, 365
sarcitella, 360
Ancylonycha, P 28
Angoumois grain-moth, . 360, 365
Anisopteryx, 332
—--- Aiscularia, 332
— - pometaria, 5 333
- - vernata, 332
Anomala atrata, 31
celebs, 31
———— lucicola, 31
—— —— varians, 31
vitis, 5 a 26
Antenne, . : 8
Anthomyia canicularis, 414
— ceparum, 415
—— radicum, 415
— Raphani, 415
scalaris, . : 414
Anthomyians (Anthomyiade), 414
Antiopa butterfly, 218
Ants, 189, 191, 369, 370, 371
Ants attend plant- lice, 189, 191
Apate basillaris, 76
Apatela Aceris, 317
- Americana, . . 317
Aphaniptera, 17
Aphidians (Aphidide), 164, 186
Aphis, : : 188
Rose, 190
Carye, 190
lanigera, 5 193
radicum, 190
Salicti, 191
Aphrophora, 182
Apion rostrum, 59
——-- Sayi, 59
Apple-tree borer, 89
buds attacked by moths, 347,
348
——-- sphinx, ‘ 230
Apple-trees ered ce American
blight, 193
ne bark- lice, 201, 203
—_—_——- canker-
worms, 334
—_—_——_——_——-—. caterpil-
lars, 261, 266, 274, 279, 308, 311
Apple-trees, other insects attack-
ing, : : 48, 97
INDEX.
—
tice e* wen, ;
hi ee 6
. ©
mr? Ap +
y La
Page
Apple-worm, : E 351, 353
Apples attacked by Be wegelss a
Apples of Sodom, é
Apricot bud-moth, 349
Aptera, 17
Arctia Acrea, 251
Americana, 246
Arge, 244
Caja, 246
caprotina, 251
fuliginosa, 253
Hebe, 247
Isabella, 253
luctifera, 257
——— phalereta, 245
—— Phyllira, . : 245
——— pudica, : 244
——— punctatissima, 255
——— rubricosa, c : 253
—— Scribonia, 246
—— textor, 259
—— Urtice, 248
——— Virginica, 248
— virgo, 244
Arctians (Arctiade), 242
Areoda lanigera, . 22
Arrhenodes, : : 5 GU
Ash-tree borers, 231
Asilians (Asilide), 407
Astasia torrefacta, ails
Asterias butterfly, 212
Atlas moth, 237
- moth of China, 281
Attaci, 5 : : 239
Attacus Atlas, . . 237, 231
-— Cecropia, 279
—-— Luna, : 277
——-— Polyphemus, . 279
-— Promethea, 281
Attelabians Seam 58
Attelabus analis, 58
bipustulatus, 5 58
Awl-bearer, ; 126
Azalea sphinx, 230
Bacteria arumatia, 119
phyllina, ° 119
-—— rubispinosa, 119
Balaninus, . 5 65
Balia, . : 3 306
Balm of Gilead. See Poplar-tree,
Bark-beetles, . 72
Bark-lice, 157, 165, 198, 201, 205
- enemies of, 202
——-—— on apple-trees, 201
——--——- on grape-vines, 205
to destroy, : 203
Barley, injured by insects, 417, 433
Barley midge, : : 436
Bat-ticks, 420
Beach-grass, use of, first pointed
out by Linneus, 51
Bean. See Windsor bean.
Beans attacked by insects, 111
_ Page
Bear-caterpillars, a 242, 247
Bee-flies, . , “ 406
Bee-moth, : : : 397
Bees, : : 369, 370, 371
Beeswax devoured by moth-worms, 357
Beetles, : - 5 21, 26
Belostoma, : : : 421
Bird-flies, . : : 420
Bittacomorpha, : 404
Blackberry bush, its borer, 91
Black fly, : : 405
Blatta orientalis, . . 118
Blennocampa, . : : 383
Blight, American, . . 193
of peach-trees, . : 192
Blistering-beetles, . : 109
Bompoptera, . 5 18, 388
Bombyces, . . 239
Bomby lians (Bombyliade), : 406
Bombylius equalis, : 406
Bombyx, 4 : 5 239
Americana, : 265
—-— Cossus, - : PAY
Moni, . ; 275
Borers, Al, 77, 231
Bostrichians (Bostrichide), : 76
Bot-bees, . 418
Bot- flies, : B : 418
Bots, i 419
Brenthians (Brenthida), : 59
Brenthus maxillosus, 5 60
septemtrionis, é 60
Bruchians (Bruchide), : 55
Bruchus pisi, . : : 59
Bud-moths, 4 é 347
Bug, plant, A : ° 161
, Squash, : : 158
Bugs," 156, 158
Bupiestians (Buprestide), 40, 94
Buprestis characteristica, - 44
dentipes, : 44
———— divaricata, . é 43
——_—— Drummondii, . 45
———— femorata, . 3 44
——— fulvoguttata, : 45
——— lurida, : : 44
———— obscura, . F 44
Virginica, . : 43
Biieries. : . 209, 210
— , four- footed, : 216
Button-wood ca: erpillars, 259
Button-wood trees bored by wood-
wasps, : . : 390
Cabbage butterfly, . - 214°
--[eaterpillar, . 213, 214
—- cut-worm, . 5 324
-— plant-louse, . 190
Cabbages 5 aa by caterpillars, 328
Calandia, = OG
— granaria, : 70
——_ Oryze, . 70
— reinotepunctata, ; 70
Callidium, ; : 82
INDEX. .
Page
Callidium bajulus, 5 Aye te:
a violaceum, 83
Callimorpha Carolina, 243
-—— Clymene, 243
—— Colona, 243
——-—— Dominula, 243
Donna, 243
a Hera, 243
———_-——. Jacobea, 243
a Lecontei, : 243
——militaris, . ayeeds
—- Parthenice, 244
- Virguneula, 244
Calliphora vomitoria, 412
Calosoma scrutator, 340
Camel-crickets, 118
Canephore, 293
Canker-worm, ; 332
Cantharides (Cantharidide), 109
Cantharis atrata, 112
- cinerea, ; 111
——-——_ marginata, Di
- vittata, 110
Capricorn-beetles, 77, 80, 94
Capsus oblineatus, ‘161
Carolina sphinx, C 226
Carpenter- moths, 297
Carpet-moth, 360
Carpocapsa Pomonella, 351
Carrot caterpillars, 211
Cassida aurichalcea, 98
Cassidade, 98
Caterpillars are the young of but-
terflies and moths, 206
— described, : 206
—— , false, - : . 373
ae , food of, . . 206
ee , habits of, 207
See ; ’ injurious to gardens, ne
249
— ; numbers of, 2116
a SPINY s wane : 217
-— , transformations of, 5, 203
; wheat, : 445
Cecidomyia cerealis, : 436
— destructor, 422
Tritici, 437, 441
Cecidomyiade, 421
Cedar (red), insects attacking, 74
Cedar-apples, 396
Celastrus. See wax-work Sepia
Celtis sphinx, : 51)
Cephalemyia age 420
Cephus, , 373
- pygmaeus, 373
Cerambycide, 77, 79, 80
Cerambyx, : 79
cinctus, é my nol
— palliatus, . 92
violaceus, 83
Ceraphron destructor, 432
Cerasphorus, 81
Ceratocampa regalis, 287
Ceratocampians (Ceratocampade), 287
Ceratomia quadricornis,
Cercopidide,
Cercopis ignipecta,
-- obtusa,
-- parallela, y
—- quadrangularis, 182
Cerura, : ° 305
- borealis, 306
- furcula, 305
Cetonia barbata, 36
- eremicola, 38
- Inda, : 36
Cetonians (Cetoniade), 3d
Chalcidide, 397
Chafers, , ‘ 23, 24
Chaleophora, 43
Chareas graminis, . 322
Cheese-maggots, 417
Cheimatobia brumata, 332
Chelonia, a 243
Cheloniaires, 242
Cherry-tree slug, 333
- sphinx, 230
- (wild), its borer, 43
Cherry-trees, infested ei caterpil-
lars}, 266
Chionea valga, 404
Chlamys gibbosa, 109
Chloealtis, . . : 148
Chlorops glabra, . e 417
— pumilionis, 417
Cherilus sphinx, 230
Cherocampa Cherilus, ° 230
——- Pampinatrix, 229
— versicolor, . 230
Chrysalids, 5 : = 7
Chrysobothris, 44, 45
Chrysomela, 99
- ceruleipennis, 108
ee Polygoni, 108
—- scalaris, 107
——- trimaculata, 107
-——— vitivora, : 105
Chrysomelians (Chrysomelade), 99,
106
Chrysopa perla, < : 197
Chrysops ferrugatus, . - 406
— vittatus, 406
Cicada, 114
Cicada, auletes, 176
- blandula, 184
- canicularis, 175
- hieroglyphica, . » 176
- pruinosa, ; 176
- septendecim, 163
- seventeen-year, 165, 167
- tibicen, 176
Cicadians (Cicadade), 164
Cimbex Americana, 5 : ot
- Ulmi, 374
Cinara, 190
Clear- winged sphinx, 230
Clematis attacked by insects, 11
Clisiocampa Americana, 269
le ° ,
ae P »* 4 ° ¥ .
oo -- ¢ »
452 © INDEX.
-'. @
. Page Page
Clisiocampa castrensis, 268, 269, 272 | Curculio, “ 61
—-—— Neustria, 267, 272 | ————— granarius, 70
- silvatica, 271 | ——_—— _hilaris, 62
Clostera Americana, 314 | —— Nenuphar, 7 Go
-- anastomosis, 314 | ———— Oryze, 70
Clothes-moth, 360 pales, 62
Clover-worms, 447 | Curculionide, ; 5 61
Clypeus, : 3 21 | Currant-bush borer, 234, 236
Glythre dominicana, 109 | Cut-worms, : 321
- quadriguttata, : 109 | Cynipide, . 395
Clytus flexuosus, 5 . 85 | Cynips, 395
Hayii, 84 bicolor, 399
pictus, 85 confluentus, 397
speciosts, : 84 | ——— dichlocerus, 399
Coccide, . : - 165, 198 | —— galle tinctorie, : 397
Coccinella, . 196 | ——— nubilipennis, : Be cie:
Coccus Adonidum, 199 | ——— oneratus, : 398
arborum linearis, 201 seminator, 399
conchiformis, 201 semipiceus, 400
cryptogamus, . 203 | Cynthia Atalanta, 223
Hesperidum, 199 — Cardui, 223
Cochenille, 198, 199
Cock-chafer, 24 | Dahlia attacked by spindle-worms, 319 ~
Cockroaches, 118 | Dasychira leucophea, 264
Codling-moth, 351 | Deilephila Chamenerii, . 230
Cenomyia pallida, . 407 ——- lineata, 230
Coleoptera, c 10, 21 | Deiopeia bella, 241.
Columbine roots destroyed oY cat- ———— pulchella, . : 241
erpillars, 320 | Delta-moths, F 343
Comma butteffly, . 221} Dermaptera, 18
Conocephalus dissimilis, 131, 132 | Desmocerus palliatus, 92
ensiger, 131 | Diapheromera, 119
uncinatus, 132 | Dicerca, 43, 44
Conopians (Conopide), 410 | Diplolepis, "395, 397, 398
Conops nigricornis, 410 | Diptera, 14, 401
-sagittaria, . 410 | Ditula angustiorana, 350
Conotrachelus Nenuphar, 66, 351 | Dog’s-bane beetle, ; me ic)
- variegatus, 66 | Dor-bugs, Ah. gina
Coreus, lineolaris, : - 161] Dors, : 23, 26
- mestus, 158 | Dryocampa bicolor, 293
- ordinatus, 158 imperialis, 290
- rugator, 158 | ——— pellucida, 293
- tristis, . 158 | ——— rubicunda, 293
Corn attacked by spindle- -worms, 318 | ——— senatoria, 292
——- destroyed by caterpillars, 145, 249 stigma, 292
- destroyed by panna 322, 325
Corn-weevil, 69, 70 | Earwigs, 116
Cossus ligniperda, 207 Elaphidion, Shpall!
Robiniz, . 296} Elater appressifrons, 49
Crambide, 356, 357 -- brevicornis, 50
Creeper attacked by insects, 180, 223 | ——-- cinereus, 49
Crickets, ; 119-121 -- communis, 49
Criocerians,(Crioceridide), 195 | ——-- noctilucus, 49
Crioceris bipustulata, 104 -- obesus, arihes0
striolata, 103 -- occulatus, 48
——trilineata, . 95 | Elateride, 46
Cryptocephalians (Cryptocephali- Elder, its borer, 92
de), “Zz 08 | Elm caterpillars, 219, 220, 222
Cryptocephalus luridus; . 109} Elms, insects attacking, 100, 107
Cuckoo-spit, 178, 182 | Elm-tree, false caterpillars on it, 375
Cucuio, ; poenng9 — ’ sphinx- -caterpillar, 227
Cucumber-bug, F 100 | Elm-trees bored by wood-wasps, 390
Cucumber skippers, se -— destroyed eu canker-
Cucumbers, insects attacking, 100, 102, worms, 334, 341
103, 125 Encyrtus, . 386
INDEX. 453
e Page Page
Erebus Strix, 237 | Gall-flies, two- ee 416
Eriosoma, 193 | Gall-gnats, "421
Eristalis sincerus, 409 Galls, 370, 372, 395
Ermine moths, 242, 248 | Gasterophilus equi, 419
Euchetes Egle, 257 — hemorrhoidalis, 419
Eudamus, : 223 | ——_——_ veterinus, 419
Tityrus, . 223 | Gastropacha Americana, 273
Kudryas grata, 310 — llicifolia, 273
-- unio, 310 Velleda, 274
Eumenes, 410 | Geometers (Geometre), 239, 330
Eumolpus auratus, 108 | Geometra catenaria, 331
Euplexoptera, 18 | Geometre, . ; 239, 330
Eurytoma destructor, 432 | Glaucopidians (Glaueopidide), 295, 236
-— Hordei, 436 | Glaucopis Pholus, 240
Eyed sphinx, 230 | Gnat, snow, . 404
Eyes of insects, ‘ ‘id 8 -, wheat, 437, 441
Eyprepia, : : . 243 | ——-, wingless, . . 404
Gnats, 401, 421
False caterpillars, . . 373 | ——--, long- legged, 5 . 404
Feather- winged moths, . 368 | ——--, gall, : 421
Fir saw-fly, . 375 | Gnophria rubricollis, 241
Fir-trees attacked by moths, _ - 300 - vittate, 241
, -- seoeage? by wood- Bislaide ce Goat-moths, : : 297
Fire-beetle, Goldsmith-beetle, . 5 22
Flea- beetles, : a2 Golden-rod, insects on, . 85, 112
Flea tribe, : : 17, 420 | Goliah-beetle, 36
Flesh-fly, 411 | Gortyna flavago, 320
Flies, 401 —- leucostigma, 320
-—--, flower, 414 -— Zee, 319
—---, golden-eyed, 406 | Grain-moths, : 360, sp
—---, how excluded from houses, 413 | Grain-weevil,
——--, parasitic, 411 | Grain-worms, : 439, 445
Flower-beetles, : 22, 35 | Grape-vine cetorpillars) 228, 229) 309
Flower-ilies, 414 ——— leaf-hopper, 183
Fly, flesh, 411 | —— Procris, . 2a
—--, golden- eyed lace- winged, 197 sphinx, ©. 228, 229
—--, hammer-headed, 417 | Grape-vines injured by bark-lice, 205
—--, Hessian, 421 | —— -- by false cater-
—--, house, 413 pillars, ‘ 378
—--, meat, Ai (Ee ae 2 thier insects, :
—--, radish, 415 23, 31, 32, 104
—--, stable, 412 | Graspers, 116, 118
—--, viviparous, 411 | Grasshopper, its growth and changes, 6
—--, wheat, . c 437 —- . See Locust.
Fly-weevil that destroys wheat, 365 | Grasshoppers, 120, 125
Forficula, F - 117 are locusts) 114
Frit-fly, 417 | Gray worm, 445
Frog-hoppers, 178, 18l | Grease-moth, 343
Fruit, weevils in, 67, 351 | Ground-beetles, 22
Fruit-flies, 416 | Grouse-locust, : 5 150
Fruit-moth, . 3ol | Grubs, 10, 21
Fruit-trees injured by beetles, 28,32, 38 | Gryllide, * 120, 125
ane SD . eanker- Geyilotalps brevipennis, . 120
worms, F » . 334; —— didactyla, 121
- - cicadas, *172 | Gryllus, 119
Fruits contain maggots, 416 - bivittatus, 140
Fur-moth, 360 - chrysomelas, 147
— equalis, 144
Gad-flies, : 405 | ——-— erythropus, 141
Galeruca Calmariensis, 100 | ——-— maculatus, 126
— vittata, 100 | ——--— migratorius, 135, 141
Galerucians (Galerucade), 99 | ———— sulphureus, 143
Galleria cereana, 357 | ——-— Virginianus, 147
Gall-flies, four-winged, 371, 395 | Gymnodus scaber, 37
454 INDEX.
Hackb hi "250 | Hypogy "261
ackberry sphinx ‘ ogymna dispar, . 20
Hier iioth E ; 304 i hk ye
Hair-moth, 360 | Ichneumon-flies, 369, 370, 385, 391
Haltica chalybea, 104 | Insects, structure of, ; ‘ 4
-— Cucumeris, 103 —, are produced from eggs, 5
——-— pubescens, 103
——-— striolata, 193| Jumpers, . ‘ a iG; WES.
Halticade, 102
Hare bot-fly, 420 | Kalmia sphinx, : se ea0
Harlequin caterpillars, 259 | Katy-did, eo l2zi
Harnessed moth, ; 245 | Knot-grass beetle, : 108
Harpya Milhauseri, 306 :
-— Ulmi, . 306} Lachnus, : * 190
Harvest-flies, 114, 157, 164, Abe Lackey caterpillars, 267
—- , dog-day, . : Lady-birds, 196
——-- , frosted, 176 Lagoa opercularis, . A 265
hoi ae leaping, . 177} Lamia titillator, : aed
Hawk- moths, 209, 2 210, ae Lappet caterpillars, ; 273
Hazel-nut weevil, ; Larva, ‘ 7
Hedge-hog caterpillar, 959 Lasiocampa Dumeti, 265
Hegemon Goliatus, : 36 ——. processionea, 234
Hemiptera, : 11, 156 | —— Quercus, 265
-- heteroptera, . 157 | ————_-—— Roboris, . 265
-- homoptera, 157, 164 | —————. Rubi, 265
Hemiptycha, 3 179 | —+—_—_ Trifolii, 265
Hepialide, 294 | Lasiocampians CLanigecmet a. 265
Hepiolus argenteomaculatus, 295 | Lasioptera, 424
—— Humuli, : 294 | Laurel sphinx, ; 230
Herminians (Herminiade), 344 | Lepidoptera, 12, 206, 209
Hesperiade, : . 222) Leaf-beetles, 4 94
Hessian fly, 5 - 421, 422) Leaf-hopper of the rose, 382
Hickory borers, : 41,44, 81 | Leaf-hoppers, 178, 182
-—- caterpillars, J 257 | Leaf-rollers, : 346
——-—- plant-louse, 190 | Leptura, : : fhe FAD,
Hippobosea equina, 420 — picta, 85
Hispa marginata, 97 — Robinie, 85
-- quadrata, 97 | Lepturians (Lepturade), < 79, 92
——-- rosea, 97 | Limacodes, ole
-- suturalis, 98 cippus, : 3 303
Hispade, : Se yf) See Delphinii, 303
Hog-caterpillar, 229, 230 | —— pithecium, 304
Homaloptera, : 18 scapha, 303
Homoptera, 19, 157, 164 | Lime or linden tree, insects on, 107, 341
Honey- dew, 189 | Linneus, anecdote respecting, 50
Hop-vine caterpillars, Q15, 220, 221, 344
Hepiolus, 0 ee
Horn-bugs, 3 38, 40)
Horn-tailed wood- wasps, 13, 370, 326
Horse-bot, : 419
Horse- flies. 405
Humming-bird moths, 225
Hybernia defoliaria, 342
os Tiliaria, . 342
« Hybernians iFaxbenniede), 332
Hydrecampa, 344
Hylecetus Americanus, 52
Hylobius, 4 62
- picivorus, - 63
Hylurgus dentatus, « - 73
- terebrans, 5 - 72
Hymenoptera, 13, 369
Hypena Humuli, 345
_—_—_— rostralis, 345
255
Hyphantria,
4
#
dane natural history useful, 50
Liparians (Liparide), . ae 260
Liparis, 269, 205
Lithosians (Lithosiade), 240
Locust, © : : 134
grouse, . 150
See Cicada, 165
Locusts, 114, 120, 132
Locust-tree butterfly, 224
— caterpillar, 224
————— boring caterpillars, 295
eee other insects attacking
it, io 59, 85, 93, 179°
Locust (honey) attacked by insects, 112
Locusta, . 139, 141
—-— abortiva, - - 149.
—-—— equalis, = 144
——-agilis, . : opel 3O
———- Carolina, . 142
———- conspersa, 149
a
INDEX.
* Page
Locusta corallina, 142
———- curtipennis, 149
— curvicauda, 129
———- eucerata, : wre
———- fasciata, 131
——-—— infuscata, 147
—-— latipennis, . c 144
—-— laurifolia, 128
—-— leucostoma, 144
——-— maritima, 143
——-— marmorata, 145
——-— migratoria, 135, 141
——-— nebulosa, . 146
——-— oblongifolia, 128
——-— perspicillata, : 1228
——-—— radiata, é . #148
—-— sulphurea, 143
~—— viridi-fasciata, . ay
Locustade, : 120, 132
Loopers, > 1330
Lophocampa Carye, 258
—- maculata, 258
—- tessellaris, 242, 260
Lophyrus Abbotii, 376
Abietis, 376
——--——— Americanus, 376
- compar, 376
Loxotenia Rosaceana, 348
Lozotenia oporana, 348
Lucanians (Lucanide), 38
Lucanus Capreolus, 40
--— Dama, : : 40
Lucilia Cesar, 413
Ludius, 5 49
Lycenians (Lycenade), 215
yda, Q 373
Lymexylide, of, : a5)!
Lymexylon navale, 51
————— sericeum, 51
Lytta atrata, S : = 12
cinerea, 111
- vittata, 110
Macrodactylus subspinosa, She St
Maggot, its transformations, 6
Maggots, 402
--, in cheese, ; 417
—-—— — fruit, 416
—__—_— the human body, 415
——_——— meat, : 411, 412
— radishes and turnips, 415
Maggots, rat-tailed, eee 409
—-, wheat, 438, 439
Mamesira picta, yar)
Mantes, : 118
Maple caterpillars, : “eet 7
Maple (sugar), its borer, 84
Marshes, salt, insects injuring, 135
May- beetles, 3 23, 28
Meadows injured by insects 25, 28, 50
Meal-moth, 343
Mealy- bus, 4 j 199
Melanotus, 49
Mellophagus Ovis, 420
455
Page
Meloe angusticollis, ls
Melolontha, 23, 27, 30
subspinosa, 32
— variolosa, . 5) all)
Melolonthians (Melolonthade), 24
Membracide, : 178
Membracis acuminata, 179
— Ampelopsidis, 178, 181
—_——-— bimaculata, 178, 179
—_——— binotata, 178, 181
————— bubalus, 178
——_—— camelu 178
—_——— Cissi, bad 181
—————— concava, ml lee,
——————-_diceros, . 2 178
—_——— emarginata, 178
—— latipes, 178
—— sinuata, 1738
— taurina, 178
a univittata, 178, 180
— vau, 178
Metamorphoses, . 5
Midas filatus, 407
Midges, 405, 421
Milesia excentrica, 409
Milk-weed beetle, 106
- - caterpillars, 255
Mole-cricket, 120
Mienchanimnine. , 87
Mosquito, its transformations, ° 5
Mosquitos, ; 402, 403
Moth, origin of the word, . 395
Moths, 209, 210, 237
— in houses, ‘how destroyed, 362
Moth-worms, 305, 361
Muck-worm, : E : 28
Musca Cesar, 413
-— domestica, 413
—-- Harpyia, 413
—- yomitoria, : 412
Muscans (Muscade), : 411
Mustard butterfly, 214
-- caterpillar, 213, 214
Mycetophile, 403
Mydas filata, 407
Myopa migripennis, 410
Myrmecophila, 125
Myrtle bark-louse, 199
Nemeophila plantaginis, 244
Nemobius, é i we |;
Nepa, 421
Nettle butterfly, 223
Neuroptera, 12
Neuter insects, : ~. 370
Noctua clandestina, . © W328
devastator, 7. oof
Noctue, , 239, 315
Nonagrians (Nonagriade), * ols
Notodonta concinna, 309
— unicornis, . 307
Notodontians Pode 301
Nut-weevil, 65
Nycteribia, 420
456 INDEX. ;
Page _ Page
Oak-apples, 397 | Pear-tree slug, ; 383
Oak-pruner, 81 | Pear-trees bored by wood- -wasps, 389
Oak-tree caterpillars, 271, 291, 299 ——-~ injured by bark-lice, 203
Oak-trees attacked by gallflies, 07 -, other insects attacking, 22,
Oaks, other insects attacking, 48, 89, 97, 74
1 8, 180 Pears, worms in, 3 355
Oberea, : : - 91 Pease, insects attacking, 54
Ocellix, . : : 8 | Pectinated antenne, 236
(Ecanthus niveus, 124 | Pelidnota punctata, 4 23
CEcophora granella, 365 | Penthina comitana, 349
CEdipoda, 141 —— luscana, 349
discoidea 142 | —— oculana, . 349
Céstrians oe 418 | Perophora Melsheimerii, 299
Céstrus bovis, 420 | Petrophila, : : 344
- buccatus, 420 | Phalene, : : 210, 237
Oiketikus, : 3 » 298 - anastomosis, : 315
Oil-beetles, 113 | —— brumata, 332
Omaloplia sericea, 30 | —— vernata, 332
— vespertina, 30 | Phaneroptera angustifolia, * 129
Onion-fly . 415) Philampelus Achemon, 228
Onions, enone by maggots, 415 — Satellitia, . - 228
Opsomala, - 138) Phyllium pulchrifolium, 119
Orchelimum gracile, 131 --- siccifolium, » 119
- vulgare, 139 | Phyllophaga traterna, 29
Orgyia antiqua, 263 | —— — Georgicana, 29
leucostigma, 262 | ——- hirticula, . 29
Ornithomyia, 420 | —_-——— pilosicollis, ones
Ortalidians (Ortalidide), 416 | ——- quercina, 3 28
Orthoptera, : 11, 114 | Phylloptera oblongifolia, sles:
ambulatoria, 116, 119 Eby tocoris campestris, . 163
cursoria, «6 - lineolaris, 161
——.——— raptatoria, 116, 118 Eien 10
saltatoria, 116, 119 | Piercers, : 369
Oryssus, . si 393 | Pimpla atrata, 391
== AIM, .< : 394 — lunator, 391
-- hemorrhoidalis, 394 | Pine saw-flies, 375
-- maurus, 394 | Pine-tree sphinx, 230
-- Sayii, 394 | Pine-trees attacked by moths, 350
-- terminalis, . 394 | ——_——_-—_____- by wood-wasps,
Oscinians (Oscinide), 417, 418 391, 392
Oscinis' fri 417 | ————_—_—____ other insects at-
lineata, 417 tacking them, 43, 45, 62, 63, 72,
Osmoderma eremicola, 38 73, 74, 80, 83, 92
- scaber, 37 | Piophila casei, : 3 417
Ourapteryx Sambucari, .. _ 331 | Pissodes, . ‘ cimehOs
Owl-moth, great, 237 | Plant-bug, 161
Owlet-moths, 315 Plant-lice, 187, 164, 186, 187
Ox bot-fly, 420 | ——- , cabbage, 190
Oxya, 140 | ——-——, downy, 193
——-——, hickory, : oet90
Pack-moth, : 360 | ——- , leaping, . neeeee lh
Palpi, @. . . : 8 | ——--——., peach-tree, - 187, 192
Pandeleteius, : 62 | ——- , Tose, . 190
Papilio Asterias, : - 212 | ——-—_, willow, 191
Papiliones, . ; SL NI) |) SS , on roots, . 191
Parsley caterpillars, 211 | ——-——, how to destroy, 195
Parsley-worms, 211 - , their enemies, 196
Pea-weevil, 54 Platygaster, 340, 432
Peach-tree borer, 232 | Platyomides, 347
— in plum-trees, 252 | Platyphyllum concavum, 128
Peach-trees injured by plant-lice, 187, | Plum-tree warts, 352
192 | Plum-trees attacked by the peach-
— —— Thrips, 187 tree borer, 352
Pear-tree borer, : 235 ~~ slugs, 383
wei
INDEX.
Page
Plum-weevil, 66, 351
Pecilochroma comitana, 349
Polyphylla Melolontha, 30
—- variolosa, 30
Pontia oleracea, 213
Poplar-tree caterpillars, 219, 305, 313
Poplars, other insects attacking, 80, 88
Porthesia auriflua, 261, 265
chrysorrhea, 261, 265
Potato- fly, 110, 112
Potato-vines, insects attacking, 95, 110
111, 112, 113, 226
Potato-worm, 226
Potato (sweet), insects on, 98
Prionians (Prionide), Z 79
Prionus brevicornis, - 79
— cylindricus, 80
— laticollis, 79
— unicolor, 80
Procris Americana, 236, 241
ampelophaga 237
Vitis, eet 236
Progne butterfly, . 221
Psilura monacha, 261
Psyche, 298
Psychians (Psychade), : 298
Psylla, 187
Pteromaius Vanesse, 220
Pterophoride, : 368
Pterophorus, : : . 368
Ptychoptera ae ae 404
Pulex, 420
Pulicide, j : 17
Pupa, : : ; 7
Purslane sphinx, : ; 230
Pygera ministra, ele,
Pyralides, - @ 239, 343
Pyralis farinalis, . 343
Pomana, 351
Pyrgota undata, 409
Pyrophorus, 49
Radish-fly, 415
Radishes, injured by maggots, 415
Raphidophora maculata, 126
Rhagium decoloratum, 93
—— lineatum, f 93
Rhipiptera, . : - 17
Rhynchenus, . Sg
— Argula, 68
ae Cerasi, sade 68
—_——- nasicus, 66
— nemorensis, 63
—_— a ae 66, 351
i 63
—_————— variegatus, 66
Rhynchites bicolor, 59
Rhynchophoride, 53
Rice- weevil, 70
Romalea, F 139
Rose-bud moths, 347, 350
Rose-btg, ~ .
Rose-bush galls, 399, 400
——-—— plant-louse, 190
58
457
oa
Page
Boee: bush slug, . . 380
—— attacked by beetles, 30, 32,
59
Runners, 116
Rustic-moths, . 321
Rutilians (Rutilade), 23
Sack-bearers, . . - 298
Salt-marsh caterpillars, 248
Sand-flies, 5 405
Saperda, ‘ 88
——— bivittata, 89
———-- calcarata, 88.
———-- tripunctata, 6 91
Sarcophaga Georgina, . 412
Sarcophagans, . : - 4t2
Sargus, 409
Sassafras-tree caterpillars, 280
Satellitia hawk-moth, 228
Saturnia Hera, 286
—-—-— lo, . 284
—-——- Maia, 285
—- Proserpina, 205
Saturnians (Saturniade), eho
Saw-flies, é 369, 370, 371
Saw-horned beetles, 5 é 40
Scarabeians (Scarabeide), 21
Scarabeus Indus, : 6, te wake:
-—- Melolontha, 30
-—- relictus, 28
Scarlet grain, 198
Scientific names useful, 19
Scolytide, . : 72
Scolytus destructor, 73
———— Pyri, 75
terebrans, 72
Selandria barda, 380
-— pygmea, 380
—____-.—. Ros, 380
———-— Vitis, : 378, 380
-— (Blennocampa) AXthiops, 383
— ——- Cerasi, 383
Semicolon baie 5 RG
Sesia diffinis, 230
——- pelasgus, 230
Sesiz, 225
Shagbark. See Walnut.
Sheep bot-fly, : 420
——-- ticks, : : 420 ®
Silk, native, : : 276, 282
Silk-worm, . ; . 239, 275
Simaéthis, : ay ode
Simulium molestum, 405
— nocivum, 405
Siphonaptera, 17
Sirex Columba, .- 389
Sitophilus, 70
Skippers, : 210, 222
Slug- caterpillars, : " 302
Slug-worm, : Be ale
Slugs, 2 3/3, 319
Smerinthi, seep
Smerinthus, svt 230
eee excecata, 230
458 INDEX.
Pa
“Page Page
Smerinthus Juglandis, 230 | Tephritis Asteris, ivaly
——_—_—— myops, 230 | Tetrix, - : - 139,150
Snout-beetles, 61 bilineata, - (15
Snow-gnat, 404 dorsalis, 151
Sodom, apples of, 398 lateralis, . 151
Soldier-flies, 408 ornata, ; : 150
Soothsayers, 118 parvipennis, | 152
Spanish-flies, ; - 109 | ——— quadrimaculata, 151
Span-worms, 330, 445 — sordida, - rik
Spectrum bivittatum, - 119| Tettigonia, . . - 183, 382
- femoratum, 119 -——- Fabe, . 186
Sphecomyia undata, 409 ——- Vitis, 184, 382
—- valida, . 410 | Tettigoniade, 182
Sphinges, c 210, 225 | Thecla Favonius, 215, 216
Sphinx Carolina, 226 Humuli, 216
— cinerea, 230 | Thistle butterfly, 223
— coniferarum, 230] Thola, . 198
drupiferarum, 930 | Thorn hedges injured by caterpil-
—— Gordius, 230 lars, 264
Hyleus, 230 | Thrips, 187
—— Kalmie, 230 ’ cerealium, 449
——— quinquemaculatus, - 227 Thysanoptera, 18
Sphyracephala brevicornis, 417 | Tibia, ” : 9
Spilonota comitana, 349 | Tiger moths, » . : 242, 243
Spindle-worm, 318 | Timber-beetles, : 51
Spinners, 239 | Tinea crinella, . 360
Spring-beetles, 46 | ——- destructor, 361
Squash-bug, 158 flavifrontella, . 361
Squash-vine Augeria, : 232 | ——- granella, : . 360, 363
Squash-vines, insects inj pe 158, 232 | ——- Hordei, 4 . 365
Stag-beetles, : 38 | ——- mellonella, 307
Star-wort gall-fly, 417 | —— pellionella, 360
Stauropus, 306 | ——- Pomonella, 301
Stenocorus, : 81 | ——— tapetzella, 360
— cinctus, . 81 vestianella, 360
—————- cyaneus, - 92|Tinex, . 239, 355
————— garganicus, 81 | Tineans (Tineade), 306, 360
———_—— lineatus, 93 | Tityrus skipper, . 223
—— putator, . 81 | Tomicus exesus, 74
Sting, - 10 —-- Pini, 74
Stingers, : 369 | Tortoise-beetles, : 98
Stinging caterpillars, 283 | Tortrices, - : 239, 346
Stomoxys calcitrans, 412 | Tortrix cereana, 357
Stratiomyade, 408 | Trachypteris, 45
Stratiomys, 408 | Tragocephala, 146
Strepsiptera, 17 | Transformations, . 5
Suture, 98 | ——_——__—_—- -—, imperfect, 115
Swamp-apples, . 396 | Tree-beetles, . 22, 23
Swamp-pink attacked by gall- Aes, 396 | 'Tree-hoppers, 178
Syrphians eR 409 | Tremex Columba, 389
Syrphus, 197 | Trichius scaber, 37
Syromastes, 160 | Trichoptera, : 18
Trochilium pps 232
Tabanus atratus, 405 | Truxalis, 138
— circtus, 405 | Turnip butterfly, 214
— lineola, 406 | ——— caterpillar, 213, 214
Tachina, . 340 | ——— fly, « 102, 105
———- vivida, 411 | Turnips, attacked by. insects, 102, 105,
Tachinade, 41] 414
Tapestry-moth, 360 | Turpentine-moths, - 300
Tarsi, : : 9| Tussock moths, 258, 261
Tent-making caterpillars, 266
Tenthredinide, . © 371 | Unicorn moth, “ . 307
Tenthredo Cerasi, 383 | Uroceride, . ‘ . 386
Page
Uroczerus abdominalis, 392
—— albicornis, 391
———— gigas, . . . 388
———— Juvencus, 388, 392
———— nitidus, A 391
Vanessa, 218
— Antiopa, eels
———— C.album, . 221
———— C. argenteum, 221
———— Comma, : 221
———— Interrogationis, — 219
— — Progne, 221
Vanessians (Vanessiade), -) 28
Vaporer moths, 263
Vine saw-fly, . 378
Virgin’s bower, insects on, 111
Visor, : A 21
Walkers, 2 : 116, 119
Walking leaves, : 119
Walnut-tree beetles, 76
———-—— caterpillars, 277, 287
———- sphinx, 230
Wasps, : " 369, 370, 371 |
Wax-moth, | @ 357 |
Wax-work plant attacked by insects, 181
Web-worms, : 254
Weevils, : 19, 53
--, brown, 445
&
INDEX.
¥
459
Page
Wheat injured by insects, 69, 363, 365,
417, 421, 437,
—- caterpillar,
Wheat-flies,
Wheat-moths,
Wheat-weevil,
Wheat-worm, 5
Whortleberry sphinx,
Willow caterpillars,
——— plant-louse,
Willow-herb sphinx,
Willow-tree caterpillars,
Windsor bean attacked by insects,
Wire-worms,
W ood-wasps,
Woolly bears, 3
Xiphicera,
Xiphydria,
——--- albicornis,
——--——- mellipes,
Xyleutes Cossus,
Robiniz,
Yponomeutade,
Ypsolophus granellus, .
Zebra caterpillar,
Zeuzera, .
Zeuzerians (Zeuzerade),
439, 444, 445
445
"417, 421, 437
363, 365
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445
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389, 392
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