Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. .•

BULLETIN 68.

WOOSTER, OHIO, FEBRUARY. 1896.

SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. SPRAYING WITH ARSENITES VB. BEES.

CARNIVOROUS HABITS OF LIMAX CAMPESTHIS.

The Bulletins of this Station are sent free to all residents of the State who request them.

sons who may receive duplicate copies, or who do not care to receive any, are

reque~ted to notify the Station. All correspondence should

be addressed to

EXPERIMENT SlATION, Wooster, Ohio.

COLU\fBUS, OHIO: THE WESTBOTE CO. STATE PRINTERS.

18136 .

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Per..

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OHGA 'iTZATJO~ OF THE

OHIO AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION.

BOARD OF CONTROL.

SETH H. ELLIS ................................................................................... Sprin~boro R. H. \VARDER ...................•............................................•..........•..... North Bend J. T. ROBINSON ......................................................•............••••••...••••.•.. Rockaway THE GoVERNOR oF THE STATE

THE DIRECTOR OF THE STATION } Ex-officio

OFFfCERS OF THE BOARD.

SETH H. ELr~rs........ ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... .......... ....• ...... ...... ....• .•.•.•••.•.. .Preeident

R H. WARDER ................................................................................... Secretary

PERCY A. HINMAN ............................................................................... Treasurer

STATION STAFF.

CHARLES E. THORNE.......................... Wooster ....................................... Director vVILLIAJ\I J. GREEN ....................... .. ..... Horticulturist and Vice-Director J. FREMONT HICKMAN, M. A. s ...... . " .. ............................... Agriculturist FRANCis M. WEBSTER, M. Sc ............ . " ................................ Entomologist AuGUSTINE D. SELBY, 11. Sc .............. , " ..................... Botanist and Chemist PERCY A. HINMAN ............................ . " ........................................ Eursar WILLIAM HoLMES ........................... .. " . ........................ Foreman of Farm

CHARLES A. PATTON ......................... . " .. .... Ass't Foreman and Meteorologist

W. A. PoRTER .................................. . " .. ...................................... Florist

H. 0. McFADDEN ........................... .. " . ..................... Foreman of Gardens

WILLIS G. HARRY........ ... . ...... ......... " .................................... Dairyman

ANNIE B. AYRES.............................. " ........................ .... -.. Mailing Clerk S. J. BL-\KE....... .•..•.••. ••.•.•.••.•.•. •.•... " ............ ......................... Mechanic J. E. BARf~LAY ................................... Neapolis ........ Supt. Northwestern Sub-Station

EDWARD MoHN ................................ Strongsville ...... Supt. Northeastern Sub-Station

'fh, B nl/et-"n< of this 8trtt•on are tssued at trregular intervals. "fhey are paged consecu­

tively and rtn index is incl·uded with the Annual Report, which. constit'l£te8 the final number of

each !Jearly volume.

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OF THE

Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station . NUMBER 68. B,ebruary, 1896.

SOME PARTICULARLY DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS 014' OHIO.

BY F. M. WEBS'rER.

Destructive insects, like weeds, are hard to define. A weed is but a plant out of place, while an injurious insect is an organism with some duty to perform in this great world of ours, and it becomes injurious, or destructive, as we term it, whenever its effects are adverse to our ever varying interests. An insect attacks a plant that has no economic value, and it is harmless so long as these conditions remain; it attacks a plant out of place, and it is a beneficial insect so long as it continues to destroy a plant out of place. But let this plant suddenly come to possess an economic value, and without any change of habit whatever, the insect suddenly becomes an injurious and destructive nne, precit;ely to the extent that it has heretofore been a beneficial one.* By destructive imects, then is meant such as attack plants or animals having an economic value. Few inse.cts there are that do not attack more than one kind of plant or animal; and with a change of conditions and environment there come changes of habits-a change from a food plant having no ~::couomic value to another, very similar, but having an economic value. Then, as is often the case, a particularly favorable year for the development of a species will force it to attack in immense numbers plants that it bas before only partaken of

*Some time after writing the above and just as this bulletin was going to the printer, I received the followmg letter from Mr. Scudder, of C •mbridge, Massachusetts, which very aptly illustrates another phase of the same subject:

CAMBRIDGE, MABB., October 27, 1895. MY DEAR SIR: An old friend of mine writes me from Connecticut of an insect­

apparently a Halticid-which bites holes in his tobacco leaves and thus leaves brown spots behind him which materially -increases the market ·value of the crop. I suppose it is used for cigar covers. The only reference I find of such a possible tobacco insect is your notice of Epitrix parvula. Do you suppose he can mean that? He wants to know how to produce a supply, and out in Ohio you are trying to get rid of it, or at least vote it a nuisance. Is not that a curious thing?

Yours truly, SAMUEr, II. ScuDDER.

20 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION.

so sparingly ae to cause no injury to them. There i's probably not an entomologist in the land who does not fully expect" each year some species of insects to make themselves conspieuous by reason of their destruc­tiveness, but not one can say a year in advance just which ones it will be, or whether it will be an old and well known offender or one with which he has had little or no experience-very often it is both-and it is no unusual occurence for some little known species to suddenly jump into prominence. The Grape-vine Fidia, Fidiavitic1da, Walsh, is a very excel­lent illustration. In some cases, an abundance ot an insect one year more or less strongly implies a recurrence the following year, but as often it is the reverse, so that few entomologists care to attempt a forecast of the entomological horizon even one year in advance. Meteorological condi­tions and natural enemies figure so largely in these matters that the best prognostications possible are likely to prove false and even misleading, for the simple raason that we know far too little of both these factors and their influence, singly or combined, on the insect world to be able to say more than that, if natural enemies are not compicuously abundant, and meteorological conditions are favorable, a certain insect will be more numerous or destructive next year than this. I do not wish to be under­stood as belittling the power and good effects of parasites, as I happen to know that but for the effect of one of them the clover fields over a large proportion of the State would have this year been totally ruined Neither do I wish to prohibit an e.ntomologist from trying to aid his people by warning them of future attacks of instct pests in their fields., because he is doing precisely what he ought to do, and on the same principle that a reputable man does not keep his buildings insured because he knows they will be burned to the ground, but because this might occur. Parasitism has been justly termed the balance wheel of nature, and for the reason that it regulates the maximum and minimum numerical strength of species among animals and plants when not influenced by man. The mechanical balance wheel, however efh~ctive it may be, will not overcome the lack of steam in the boilers, fuel in the furnace, or an efficif n t engineer. Probably underdrainage has yet to cure a single case of m11laria, yet there is not a medical practitioner in the land that does not know that a system of underdrainage has the effect of largely preventing the disease, where it has been generally carried out. In other wordEt, natural enemies and meteorological conditions do much to keep destructive inst cts reduced in numbers, but to what extent and how tar such f:'ff ets will protect crops during a coming yea.r, it is not possible for an entomologist to know; but, nevertheless, it is his busin~E's to give as much informttion on this point as lies in his power so to do, and he ought not to be criticised because of

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his not being able ta ~cquire a better knowledge, or because he does no~ care to risk statements not borne out by the facts already in his possession.

'l'HE CANKER WdRM.

Anil5'1pteryx vernata Peck.

Ord. LEPIDOPTERA: Plate I, Fig. I. Fam. GEOMETRID!E

It is not the intention to present anything new regarding this pest, as it is one of the earliest known depredators of the orchard. As far back as 1661, John Hull states that ''the canker worm hath tor four years devoured most of the apples in Boston, that the apple trees look in June as if it was the ninth month." They were again very destruc:ive in 1770. and in Salem lasts were held for the deliverance from caterpillars, Palmer worms and other destructive insects in 1665, 1686 and 1708.1 The first important pub­lication on the species and in which it was first described was by Prolesaor Peck, and was printed in the year 1795.' As there is a second species of canker worm, Anisopteryx pometaria Harris, commonly known as the fall canker worm, and which closely resembles the one under considera­tion, there has been much confusion in both the classification and records of the two species. Dr. Riley has even held that they do not belong to the same genus, and erected the genus Paleacrita for the express purpose of including the present species, a departure in which very few entomolo· gists have concurred, and as Anisopteryx is the old llnd well established name under which it is best known, I prefer to follow the usage of the large majority in this bulletin. I have no exact knowledge of the occur­rence of the fall canker worm in Ohio, and even if it does occur the larvre appear in spring and can be treated precisely as the other. As a matter of interest, however, both species are illustrated in all of their stages of development.

The females of both species are wingless, as shown at g fig. 1 and b 2, plate I, the males, .f fig. 1 and a fig. 2, only pJssessing wings. The female of the Spring Canker Worm, to which we shall now confine ourselves, sometimes emerges in limited numbers in the fall, but as a rule they appear in the spring, and climbing up the trees deposit their eggs on the limba and twigs. The egga are very delicate, of a pearly lustre, and are placed in clusters or masses, as many as a hundred sometimes being found together without any regular arrnngement, but usually hidden in the bark. The natural size of the egg is silown at a fig. 1, in the cluster, while at b, others are enlarged to sbo 7V the form. These 1-'gg~ hatch in

1 Felt's Annals of Salem, vol. II, p. 127. 2 Mass. Mag, Sept., Oct., 1795, pp. 323-415, Figs. 1-7.

i2 . OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION,

the spring, just about the time when the leaves of the apple are pushing forth from the buds, and the tiny caterpillars at on.ce begin to feed upon them. The young are of a dark olive-green color, varying sometimes to brown, with a shining black head and a horny plate of the same color on the top of the next segment. When full grown their form is as illus­trated at c fig. 1, the head being mottled and spotted, with two pale, trans-verse lines in front; the body with many narrow pale lines running • longitudinally and becoming deeper in color at the sides, and with black-ish spots down the middle of the back.

When full grown, the caterpillars descend to the ground by letting themselves down by silken threads from the branches. They enter the ground from two to six inches and there make a tough cocoon of buff colored silk intermix:ed with particles of earth, within which cocoon t.he chrysalis is formed, in which stage they usually pass the winter,

·: ::ner!!:ing as adults occasionally in the fall, but in the majority of cases in the early spring. After emerging from the ground the first move­ment of the female is to drag herself to the nea.rest tree, and ascending this, await the coming of the male, after which she proceeds to deposit her eggs. These are laid in masses, without any regularity of arrang­ment, but are often hidden under loose bark or in the crevices thereof.

From the foregoing it will be seen that, as the female cannot fly but must crawl up the trees from the ground, anything that will pre­vent this ascent will protect the trees from attacks of the worms pro­duced from any eggs she may deposit. Even if fertilized eggs are deposited on the trunks, the caterpilla:s must mount to the branches \n precisely the same way as the mother. Anything that hinders the moth from reaching the limb, as for illustration, tarred ropes or bands 1>f tarred paper tied around the trunks of trees, so long as the tar remains soft, presents a zone so sticky as to present an impassible barrier to either females or caterpillars. But the most practical as well as ~he least expensive remedy will be found in spraying with arsenites. As the eggs hatch with the first appearance of the leaves, one application should be made before the bloom appears, and a second immediately afterwards. The very young worms will be found much easier to kill than if they are allowed to become nearly or quite full grown. In -case these two applications do not, on account of wet weather or other adverse circumstances appear to be effective, a third application should follow the second within a week or ten days. In short, either prevent the female from ascending the trees, or else fight the canker worms while very young, early in the season. The poison can be applied in connection with the Bordeaux mixture, using from four to six ounces to each fifty gallons.

SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS.

There are quite a number of natural enemies that will help to eradi· eate the pest, and probably destroy many that escape the poisons.

THE FRUIT BARK BEETLE.

Scolytus rugulosus Ratz.

Ord. COLEOPTERA: Figs. S, 4, 5, 6, 7, "Plate II. Fam. SCOLYTID.!Ii.

Of the destructive insects that have come to me during the year, few and perhaps none have been received oftener and from more widely sep· arated points than has this one. This would not only indicate a general distribution over the State, but that it was as numerous as it was general. In fact, since I first met with it in southern Indiana, nearly five years ago, it has never been so abundant or its work more conspicuous. All over the State, wherever I have been during the past summer, its attacks on fruit trees have been observed. Trees in good health, so far as a casual examination revealed, could everywhere be seen with the bark of the trunk and lower limbs thickly studded with masses of gum, due to the sap that had oozed from the hole,- bored by the beetles, and hardened. In Europe, from which country this insect is supposed to have been intro· duced, it is not considered a serious pest and is supposed to attack only trees that are already in an unhealthy condition. Some studies of mine, carried on several years ago in Indiana, will give a good idea of the way the insect works, besides showing that what is true in Europe is equally so here. As these results are as applicable in Ohio as in Indiana, I give them below, and would suggest that the extremely dry weather of the summers of 1894 and 1895 might have had a widespread and injurious effect on many seemingly perfectly healthy trees, which if these borers had not attacked them, might have recovered from the effects of the drouth, the latter, however, furnishing the very condition to provoke attack from the borers.

On June 13, the beetles were observed burrowing into the trunks and baEes of the larger branches of peach trees in the garden of Mr. F. W·. N oltt>, at Mt. Vernon, Indiana, and apparently working serious injury. There were five rows of these trees, and the first tree in the second, third and fourth rows had, one after another, dropped their foliage and died. The first tree of the first row, standing in a fEmce corner, had remained uninjured, although the first tree in the next row had been the very first to sustain attack and perish. The affected tree in the fourth row was not at the time of my visit 1ully dead but the foliage was turning yellow and falling, while hundreds of beetles were actively engaged burrowing into the ba,rk. Other trees in these rows were being attacked, but to a much less degree. The three trees most seriously injured were saturated with

OH10 EXPERIMENT llTATION.

coal oil and burned, as far as possible, w bile yet standing, while those less infested were recommended for treatment with a wash composed of soft soap and carbolic acid.

On July 31, specimens of the beetle and sectiDns of an infested apple tree were received from Mr. E. E. Wilkinson, oiPrincPton, lndial'ia, with complaints of the ravages of these insects among both apple and pfar trees. August 4 and 5, the orchard of Mr. Wilkinson was examined, and a considerable number of trees, both apple and pea , found to be in Jested by this insect in all of its stages. This orchard comprised one thousand Ben Davis apple trees, set alternately in the row with the same r umber of Kieffer"s Hybrid pear trees, all having been planted out in Uh8. The ground was uneven, and had for the most p<trt been but recently cleared, before the trees were planted, some of it having been cultivated and other portions not. At the time of my visit the land was badly overgrown with weeds and underbrush, and was being pastured with hogs and horses. The owner stated that on .. of his trees had been attacked and had died in 1888, fifteen or twenty in 1889, and forty or fifty the present year. Alter considerable time had been spent in the examination of infested trees, Mr. Wilkinson called my attention to tfhe condition of the roots of these, claiming that the roots of all trees attacked in his orohard. had been dis­eased, he was quite sure, prior to their becoming infested by the borers. A further study of his orchard did not prove the correctness of his theory, bu; did .reveal the fact that every tree seriously ioj ured by the insect in question was either diseased at the roots, or else had sustained some in­jury tending to destroy the free circulation of the sap, although the tree itself might appear in a healthy condition.

The orchard of Hon. C. A. Buskirk, located in the same neighbor­hood, but at a considerable distance from that of Mr. Wilkinson, was next examined. This orchard comprised 500 Kieffer pear trees, 500 peach al­ternated with 500 Ben Davis apple trees, and about 1,100 miscellaneous pear trees, all, except the last, having been purchased of the same dealer, and set out at the same time as those of Mr. Wilkinson's The condi­tions of the two orchtrds were however, otherwise very different. In Mr. Buskirk's nearly every tree was vigorous and healthy, showing the best of care and attention. The soil above the roots had, in the majority of aases, been treated with ashes or lime, and where these were not used, .table manure had betn applied. The land had been thoroughly culti­Tated, but not cropped betw~eo the row~, no cultivation being given dur­ing the latter part of the summer. The fatalities since planting, up to date of examin.i.ti ·n, from all causes, amounted to one pear and two peach trees, only the latter having been attacked by Sr:ol:4tus. The pear tree, which did not become infested by the borers, had been attacked at the

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roots by the same species of fun~~:us as was found in the orchard previously examined, and to which Mr. Wilkinson attached so much significance. One of the peach trees., ab ·•ve mentioned, had been dug up •everal weeks before, and, from ly-ing out in the hot sun and wind, the bark had be­come thoroughly dead. except .on some of the larger branches. In the dead bark of this tree were found many yuung !arne, but these were also dead. In the partly living bark, on the branches, were found a small number of nearly full-gro Nn living larvre. The other p~aeh tree was dug up by Mr Buskirk and myself, and, while the roots Wl:'re dead, there was no fungoid growth upon them In company with Mr. Bu, kirk, I ex­amined a gnat numb~r of tre~:-s in this and other orchards, but found only a single borer, and this was running about ever the branches of ·a peach tree, and not engaged in attack. Returning again to the orchard of Mr. W1lkinson, both he, myself and Mr. Buskirk, E~pent several hours in further examination of trees, but in no case did we find the borers at­tacking healthy trees, although many of the uninfested were having a severe battle for life in their uncongenial environme'nt.

On August 7, I again visited the garden of Mr Nolte, of Mt. Vernon, and found that no more fatalities had occurrl'ld among hi"' peacb. trees, and those which I had previously observed being attacked while in a V1gdr11us condition, did not show the least injury, although the bark had been punctured in many places. The female borers had quite evidently punc-l ;tured the bark, and attempted to construct their egg chambers underneath, ;but in this I found they had failed without a single exception, and there fwas every indication that they had given up in de<'pair. Cherry trt>es, near by, were being attacked, but these were found d1scased at the mots, except in one cas:J where the tree had been attacked by the peach borer, SeBia pir:t1pes. I tound the young, erect shoots, growing from the large branches of old apple trees, were attacked, where the trees themselves were in the process of dying out, but in no case could I find a healthy tree being attacked by Scolyt'U8, as I had observed the preceding .June.

· In summing up the results of observations Gn this insect, it would appear (1) that the beetles attack only such trefs as are probably badly injured, either by some trouble at the root or the lower part of the trunk, whereby the circulation of the sap is more or less destroyed; (2), the larvre can not sustain life in bark which is wholly dead; (3), adults sel-;; dom or never oviposit in healthy, vigorous trees, but are attracted by 1 odors given off by sour or fet"menting sap; (4), trees a:ffectEld by pear' blight do not induce oviposition; (5), the species is at least double brooded, the eggs being deposited in June and August, the insect passing the winter in one or more of its stages of development in the bark.

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The fully developed insect is a small, dark brown beetle, (Plate I. Fig. 3), which bores into the bark on the trunk and lower limbs of the peach, plum, cherry, and pear trees, excavating small round cavities, about the size of mustard seed shot, (Fig. 4), and then working down under the bark, forming galleries or chambers (Fig. 7), in which the female lays her eggs. These eggs hatch to minute, white grubs with brown heads, (Fig. 6), and these eat their way in the inner bark, pushing out in all directions. The larvre transform to the adults within these chambers, and, in fact, probably pass the winter there also. There are probably at least two broods of the insects each year, eggs being deposited in June and in August.

Of the natural enemies, birds are beginning to play an important part, and it is a very common sight to see the bark of trees containing the larvre literally torn off the affected portions, and quite a number of my correspondents have stated that it was through this that their attention was first drawn to the matter. Of insect enemies, I have reared a very small four winged fly, Rhaphitelus ?naculatus Walker, here in Ohio. As this parasite is also offoreign origin, it may do much to hold the pest in check. Another, and possibly two species of similar parasitic insects were reared in North Carolina, by Prof. Atkinson, one of them, Chiropachys colon Linn, being also a foreign species. Between these insect enemies and the birds, we shall certainly derive some benefit, yet from all that is now known, both in Europe and America, the best preventive will be found in keep­ing the trees in a thoroughly vigorous condition. It is possible that if fertilizer be applied when the insect first attacks a tree, and at the same time some repellant like a mixture of soap and carbolic acid be applied to the trunks and lower limbs, the attack might be warded off and the tree enabled to overcome the original trouble and recover sufficiently to render it unattractive to the borer. As there appears to be something distastful to insects in Bordeaux mixture a trial of this might be worth while. Burning of badly in vested trees in July or soon after the spring brood of adults disappear and before the second brood have issued from the trees, and during winter, will have a tendency to keep the p<·sL reduced iD the orchard, and thereby give the weakly trees a better opportunity to survive.

THE RING LEGGED TREE BUG.

Brochymena annu ata Fab.

Ord. HEMIPTERA: Fig. 8, Plate I. Fam. PENTATOMID1E.

This is a new pest of the orchard, the first notice of its depredations appearing in Insect Life Vol. VII, No.2, p. 47. The statement was there­in made that Mr. Samuel E. Coleman, of Virginia, had complained of its

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killing the new growth on his young apple trees by pumping up the sap· from the tender wood, adding that the insect was locally known as the large chinch bug.

In May of 1894, I received from Mr. Lowell Rauderbush, Owensville, Ohio, the same bug, with the statement that it had killed the shoots on some of his young apple trees, and later, in the fall, he again wrote me that he had carefully watched it in the summer and found that it also attacked young plum trees. During the summer, I had myself found it in great numbers on larches at Mr. R. H. Warder's, near Cincinnati, and on various fruit trees northward to Lake Erie, a pupa having been observed at Wooster, October 12.

The notice in Insect Life gave the distribution as New York, District of Columbia, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Missouri, and Colorado. I have found it in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio; in the two former States under bark of forest trees in autumn and winter. By others these bugs have also been found under b:uk in winter, and the eggs and young larvre upon pea-vines and upon willow. Prof. Bruner finds this or a closely allied species on both wild and cultivated grapes, in Nebraska.

The insects are of a dull, grayish-brown color and their appearance is clearly shown in Fig. 8, Plate I, the line at the right showing natural length.

In young orchards, it would seem practicable to shake or jar them off and kill them. If both eggs and young are found on the trees, or if it becomes necessary to fight the pest in the vineyard, kerosene emulsion can be applied, but this must not be used on grapes after the fruit has set on account of spotting it and thus injuring the market value.

THE CLOVER LEAF WEEVIL.

Phytonomtts punctatus Fab.

Ord. CoLEOPTERA: Fig. J, Plate II. Fam. CURCULIONID!E.

This is an introduced species, coming to us from Europe, where it occurs from Sweden to Italy, and in western Siberia. In Italy at least it has been known to attack clover for many years.

Just when and how it became introduced into this country, is not known; but a single specimen, found in Pennsylvania, and another in Canada, both many years ago, would indicate that it is n0t a recent introduction. The first recqrd we have of its destructive habits in this country was published in the American Naturalist, September, 1881, by Prof. C. V. Riley, who had recently received specimens from Yates County, N.Y., where it had greatly injured clover. It appears to have spread rapidly westward through New York, and probably reached Ohio

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about 1890. I saw it at Chautauqu:1 Lake, in September, 1888, and the larvre were sent me from Perry, Lake County, Ohio, May 18, 1892. As this locality is but about thirty-five miles from the Pennsylvania line, it is quite probable that they first entered the State at the extreme north­east corner, and not more than one or two years before. During the ~arne year, however, the fully developed beetles were found by Mr. Charles Dury, in the vicinity of Cincinnati, and Mr. J. S. Hine found it in the western part of the State (Lucas County) in 1893. Mr. . A. Schwarz found one in the stomach of a crow, shot in Michigan, Mcty 8, 1892 Tuere seems to have been a section in the central part of the State, where it was still unknown until the present year, but it now covers the whole State and this would indicate that it h,td been c.trried into the upper Ohio river and been distributed, probably on drift wood, along the banks of this stream between Columbiana and Hamilton counties.

This insect will be easily recognized fmm the accompanying Fig. 1, Plate II.

When Dr. J. A. Lintner prepn,red hit> tir,;t annual report in 1882, he, with the aid of Drs. Htgen and LeConte lailerl t·• discover any record of the clover-destroying habit of this spPcies in Europe, and it was supposed at that time that this was a newly acquired habit, and occurring only in this country. Indeed, Dr. LeConte failed to learn anything whatever in regard to the food habits of this species. As it has now entered into the Mississippi Valley and is rapidly pushing its way westward, it will be of interest to those who will have to deal with it in future to know that its taste for clover wa~ not of American origin, but had been observed in its native home many years ago. It is a matter of surprise to me that noth­ing is said by Italian observers that gives the least hint of injury by the larvre, which is. with us, by far its most destructive stage. Nor do I find that Sig. Piero Bargagli, from whose very useful work, Rassegna Biologica di Rincofori Europei, I have taken the following extr<tct, anywhere men­tions the larva of this species) which he considers under the name Hypera punctata, Fab.

During the yeal'S 1867-70, Medicago sativa and Trifolium were very much damaged in Lombardy and Bologna by this insect; and on the 4th of J nne, 1868, Mr. Antonio Villa, in Relazione sugli insetti che devastano it Tr!foglio, Milano, 1868, and again in Sull' insetto diRtruttore del 1'rifogl-io, Milano, La Lambardw, 13 giugno, 1868, directed the atten· tion of the agriculturists of the district of Milan to the darnal{e proven to have been done in the districts of Melegnano and Creme, attributing the extraordinary develop­ment of this species to the rem~trkable drouth, followed by excessive heat, causing the destruction of carnivorous insects which were hostile to this and other species. Various remedies. were employed for destroying the pests, among the mo;t succ ssful bein~ the flooding of the meadow•, rolling after the cutting of the clover, and finally, collecting with small bags or nets.

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In his seoond article, the eminent Mr. Villa stated the fact that, in the appendix to the work of G6n~ (De quibmdam imootis Sardmics novis au. minime cognitis, Mem. B • .Accatl. &. Torino, &r. L, Vol. 39, Ser. II, Vol. L), which had been prepared by Prof. Moretti, this species had been mentioned as among those having damaged clover. In pointing out how this insect had destroyed clover, Mr. Villa Pxpressed the b, lief that an earlier attack had occurred, between the years 1834-35, in which the injuries done were similar in character to that of this speoiPs. The Station of Agricultural Entomology at Florence received notice, in June, 1879, that this in•ect had, in the Commune of .Ferrara Erbagnana, destroyed afield of 5ettari(abo•It lit acres) in ex ent. (See Relazione mtorno cri lavori della Stasiooe Entomologica agraria di Fire1•z~, by At. 7argioni-Tozze ti, in A11nall di Agricoltura del Mini&fero di Agricoltura e Comme. c"'• Roma, 1879.)

In the neighborhood of Florenc•·, besides having been found in the clonr in sprin~r, it was, neTertheleBB1 observed in the winter among moss at the bMe of trees, and though hiber11ating, during warm, sunny days would come forth and bask in the sun.•

Here in Ohio, I find that the larvre pre'er the white clover to the red, and some unsatisfactory observations of mine, made quite r€cently, make me feel rather suspicious that the food of the adult may include plants· other than clover. At Chautauqua Lake, some years ago, I observed the adults in considerable number:.~ floating about in the water, into which I supposed they had either dropptd or been blown from the trees. But if this were so, what were they doing there?

The beetle measures over four-tenths of an inch in length, is of an oval form, and of a brown color, which is paler over four rows of punc­tures on the sidee, and sometimes upon the sutral line. The beak is rather short, broad and blunt., the thorax is smooth, elevated, traversed by th.ree pale lines. Both it and the wing-covers are cloth€d with short yellowish-brown hairs, and upon the ridg€s of the latter are arranged a number of black scale tufts.

The egg is elongate-oval, about twice as long as wide, pale yellow, and smooth when first laid, but becoming greenish-yellow, and roughened with hexagonal depressions before hatching. In most c~ses the larva has hatched in about one week from the time when the egg was laid. The young la:rva is pale, with a dark head, but subrequently becomes greenish with a distinct whitish medio-dorsal line relieved by darker shades each side. The body is deeply wrinkled with prominent substigmatal and ventral swellings, the latter so well developed and so ex tensile that they perform the functions of prolegs, giving the larva its strong resemblance to those of the sawflies, and enabling it to easily craw 1 or clasp the edge of a leaf. When a.t rest it clings sideways and in a curved position to the leaf, usually on the under side, graf'ping the leal-hairs between the ventral swellings, but especially in the transverse fold of the anus, by which it can hold and swing tl:.e whole bfldy about.

The eggs are deposited the latter part of summer by the beetles, which may be seen in July and August. The larvre fi·om these appt>ar in Sep-

• Pfqm Zaaeegna Biologica dl Rlncoforl Eur"pei. pp. 97-8, 1883-b7.

OHIO EXPJ!;JUMENT STATION.

tember, and changing to pupre in October, emerge as beetles in November. Some of them lay their eggs, from which the larvre hatch and hibernate while quite small, within the old clover stems. Others of the beetles hibernate without oviposition, and lay their eggs the following spring. The young larvre are seen in Ohio as early as March, feeding upon the clover, but it. is not before the latter part of April and May that they have attained a sufficient size to render them very injurous and their depreda­tions noticeable. .At first, they feed among the folded young leaves or attached to the qnder side of a leaf; later they fasten to its edge, into which they eat irregular patches.

The older larvre are difficult to observe while feeding, as they are quite timid, and drop to the ground when approached. The feedin~ is done during the night, the day being passed in concealment among the roots and old stalks or other shelter found upon the surface of the ground. After they have, with their increase of size, undergone three moultlngs, they spin up in their cocoons, placed usually a little beneath the surJace of the ground. The larva remains unchanged within the cocoon for a few days, when it transforms to a pupa.

About three weeks later, in June, the beetle emerges. From observa­tions made at the Department of Agriculture at Washington upon the insect in confinement during the autumn, the several periods of its dif­ferent stages were found to average as follows: The egg stage, ten and a half days; first larval stage, nine days; fourth larval stage (Jrom third moulting to spinning of cocoon), 25 days; larva unchanged in cocoon, nine days; pupal state, 30 days. The entire time from the egg to the perfect insect was 101 days, or about three and one-third months.

The pest is not easily reached by insecticides, where these are practic­able, though it is very probable that powdered pyrethrum mixed with a. low grade of flour, one pound of the powder to ten of flour, and allowed to stand in a tight cask or other receptacle for twenty· four hours and then dusted lightly over the fields, will kill all of the worms that it toucl1es, and not injure the clover. Rolling the fields with a heavy roller will crush many, as will the dragging of a heavy rope over the ground by hitching a horse to each end and walking them abreast at a distance from each other, allowing the rope to bow or sag in the middle.

Very fortunately, however, it will not likely be necessary to ma.ke any application of insecticides, as a natural enemy appears to be folltw­ing close in the track of this pest, sweeping the larvre off in myriad~. in consequence of which probably but a very small per cent. of them ever reach the adult stage. Strangely enough, this is a vegetable paras r,. , a. species of fungus that develops within the bodies of insects, causing d. ath and spreading contagion among st;tch individuals as happen to be in the

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I

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<:\Oi\IE DESTRUCTIVE INSEC'l'S. 31

close vicinity. The iungus is somewhat closely allied to that attacking the Chinch Bug, and is, if anything, more fatal and contagiou<:;. The presence of this enemy may be known by the occurrence of greater or less numbers of dead and discolored worms, that will be noticed coiled about the tips of blades of grass or similar objects, as shown in Fig. 1, plate III.

This fungoid disease, known to science as Entomophthora sphwrosperma Fresen., Fig. 2, plate II, also attacks the cabbage worm, and was first dis­covered as an enemy of the larvre of the clover leaf weevil by Dr. J. C. Arthur, at Geneva, N.Y., and named by him Entomophthora phytonomi (Fourth Rep. N.Y. Agl. Exp. Sta., pp. 258-262), but Dr. Roland Thaxter, who has since made a study of the species of this family of parasitic fungi con­siders it identical with the one that we had already found attacking the larvre of the imported Cabbage Butterfly, Pieri8 rapw. As this fungus enemy is a native of Europe, it was not unlikely introduced with the latter host, and if it attacks the larvre of the Clover Leaf weevil in Europe, we have no record of its having been obseryed. The fungus is illustrated in Fig. 2, plate II.

The larvre are also destroyed by birds, and barnyard fowls are very fond of them, and especially is this true of turkeys.

My notes made here at Wooster, give the following regarding dates of appearance: November 9, male and female pairing. Adults also observed on May 3; larvre at the time very abundant. June 21, found adults in street and three days later at Nottingham, near Cleveland, these were very abundant on heads of timothy, but were not observed to feed thereon.

While the clover plant is probably their chief food plant, Dr. Lintner, in his second report, states that they will also attack beans, and we may therefore look for a more varied food habit than at present known.

THE CLOVER ROOT BORER.

Hylastes trifolii Mull.

Ord. COLEOPTERA: Fig, 2, Plate III. Fam. SCOLYTID.B.

This is another foreign tlpecies that has come to us within the last few decadt>s, having bet-n first discovered in this country in the same State as the preceding, in 1878. The native home of the insect is in middl~ Europe, where its depredations on red clover have been known for many yt'ars, one of the best treatises on its life and habits having been published as early as 1844.3 Just when or how it came to be introduced in this country is not koown, but it has spread from New York westward,

1 Stettiner Ent. Zeit., 1844, pp. 389-397.

32 OHIO l!JXPl!JH.lM!l:NT tiT A .10:-i.

at least as far as Indiana. In Ohio it appeared first over the norther·1 portion of the State, then in the southwest corner, and probably is ar,

·present pretty generally diffused over the entire State, except pm:sib!y in the extreme southeastern portion. I have not yet observed it in Wayne county, but presume it occurs here, at least in limited numbers. It has been sent me :rom Summit county, where it attackE-d growing peas.

The life history of the pest is probably the same all over Ohio, though it may pass the winter at the extreme south wholly in the adult state, while in the northern part it probably does this to a large extent, yet may winter over in all stages. The eggs are laid by the female during spring in ca.Tities, gouged out by the female in the crown of the root, and in which she places from four to six pale, whitish, elliptical eggs. These hatch in about a week, the young grubs for a time feeding in the excava­tioa made by the mother insect, but they soon begin to burrow downward, finally making their way to the different brancl:.es, the galleries running nearly regularly along the axis of the roots, as shown in Fig. 2a, plate III. When the lan-a or grub, d, Fig. 2, plate III, is full grown it transforms to the pupa, c, J'ig. ~.plate III, within the burrows. In Ohio, some of these may be found in the roots as early as the latter part of July, and later on the pupm transform, still within the plant, to the adult borer, d, Fig. 2, plate III. There is, therefore, but a single brood of borers each year, and, as is largely at least true with the mo~:~t of the insects of this group, the principal injury is dene while in the larval or grub state. From the fore­going it will be Feen that these borers attack the roots, not of the first year's growth, but of the second, and that the injury is done, very largely at least, before the middle of July, though in very wet seasons the plants may not entirely die out until late summer, fall or even during the fol­lowing winter. Ordinarily, the effect will begin to show at haying time, or even before. The larvre are lootlees and cannot travt l about trom plant to plant, but must either find subsistance within the plant or perish, unless th1-y are·sufficiently advanced to enable them to enter the pupal state, during which they require no food. It is the custom in many localitil:'s to remove but one crop of hay, pasturing the field later on and plowing it up the following spring. This allows the borers to develop within the plant~>, and they have but to make their way to adjoining fields and commence their work the following. spring. What has always appeared to me to be the better plan is to plow infected fields immediately after the hay crop has been removed, and while the larvre are in a helpless condition. If the sod is turned up to the hot sun and winds, it will soon dry out and wither the roots so that the food supply of the lanre will be cut off and they must necessarily starve; whereas, if the plowing is delayed until they have reached a point where they do not require food. they will not be

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SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 33

injured. I have received infested clover roots from Celina, Mercer county, on June 25, that contained an occaesional pupa, thus showing that the longer plowing is delayed al'ter this date the greater number of the borers will be left to attack to clover fields the following spring. It is impossible to prevent the full grown insects from entering a field; if they are in the near vicinity, and equally impossible to prevent them from ovipositing in the plants, after they have become established, while to reach the pest in the roots is out of the question. Therefore, as a preventive, the farmer's best course is to plow his field, if badly injured by this pest, as soon as possible after the middle of June, taking care to leave the sod exposed to the drying out effects of the weather as much as possible. Of course this does not admit of removing a crop of seed, but if the plan is followed in a community for a few years, or if only healthy fields are carried over, the pest will probably become so reduced as not to long require such rigid treatment.

There is no other insect, attacking the clover fields in Ohio, that can be confused with this one, though the fully developed beetle strongly resembles another borer working in the elm and ash, but the two are entirely distinct. The beetle is scarcely a tenth of an inch long, and brownish black; the larvre or grubs are about an eighth of an inch long, whitish with yellow or brownish-yellow heads.

THE STRAWBERRY SAW·FLY.

Harpiphorus maculatus Norton.

Ord. HYMENOPTERA: Plate Ill, Figs. 3 and 4. Fam. TENTHREDINIDB.

This species was first described under the name Emphytu,s maculatus, in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. VIII, 1861, but I think that the first information regarding its life history was given by the late Dr. C. V. Riley, in the Prairie Farmer for May 25, 1867.

The insect is well illustrated in its various stages of development by Fig. 3, of plate III, and it will be most easily recognized by the ordinary fruit grower in the larval state, coiled on the leaves as shown at 6 in the figure. Dr. Riley states in his Ninth Report on Insects of Missouri that there are two broods each year. That is, the flies were abroad in April and during the last of June and first of July.

In the Report of U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture for the year 1887, p. 152, the writer recorded the occurrence of larvre, from two-thirds to nearly full grown, on strawberry in \Vayne county, Indiana, on October 5, 1887. These larvre were determined as belonging to this species by some of Dr. Riley's assistants, and furthermore, according to the studies

2 EX. IJT. DUL. 68

34 OHIO EXPERil\IENT STATION.

of Mr. Mally, "Insect Life," iii, p. 10,) they seemed to agree with others from which Prof. Forbes reared the species n.ow under consideration. I did not, as Mr. 1\Ially states, rear adults from the Indiana larvre, but relied on the determinations received from Washington. A year or so later, on July3, in the garden of Hon. E. H. Scott, Mayor of the city of LaPorte, Ind., I saw nearly full grown larvre in numbers sufficient to quite defoliate the strawberry plants on which they were depredating. Not being provided • at the time with facilities for studying the insect in c0nfinement, nothing more was done until July, 1893, when, being provided with better facili-ties for this kind of work, I wrote Mr. Scott asking him to kindly send me a lot of larvre. On July 5, I received a large number in fine condition, which were at once placEd in a breeding-cage on strawberry plants, upon which they finished their development and entered the earth. Nothing more was seen of the insect in any stage until March 19, 1894, when adults appeared in the cage which had been kept all winter in the insectary, and a few days latter were present in considerable numbers. In their old home in the garden at LaPorte, the larvre appeared simultaneously with, or a a little in advance of the ripening of the earliest berries. Though con-siderably in advance of this, in the insectary, the larvre were on hand at a time exactly corresponding with the development of the fruit, showing that the natural order of things had remained practically unchanged, the inMct haviiig only kept pace with the plants, and that, in this case and under the moet favorable environment, the species was single brooded. The Wayne county larvre were found at lat. 39° 51' N., while LaPorte is in lat. ~1 o 35' N., a difference of about two and a quarter degrees. The altitude of the Wayne e;ounty locality is about 9GO feet above sea-level, and LaPorte is probably not far from 750 feet, showing that the season could not have been, normally, more than a fortnight earlier at the southern iocality. The reports of the Indiana State Weather Service show a difference of about 2° in the mean annual temperature between the two localities. The larvre from LaPorte did not differ in appearance from those found in Wayne county, nor from those figured by Mr. Mally (loc. cit. vol. ii, p. 140). The method and locality of oviposition on the plant were both as described of this species, and as this has not before been shown I have illustrated it in figure 3, plate III, the eggs being placed in the leaf stalks, just under the epidermis. On developing, the eggs increase in size and show as distinct blotches. In the figure these blotches are shown as after vacated by the young larvre, except in one case where the epidermis is cut away to show the unhatched larva. The adults reared from the larvre from LaPorte were the ones ovipositing in the leaf from which the drawing for this illustration was made, and were determined by myself, a:nd.l.a~er, in order that there might be no possibility of error,

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SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 35

I sent them to U. S. Entomologist, Mr. L. 0. Howard, whose determina­tion sustained my own in every particular.

From the foregoing it will be ob3erved that instead of one Strawberry saw-fly, we have two, one of them laying its eggs in the substance of the leaves and the other placing them in the leaf stems, the larvre from the former appearing a littlu in advance of the latter, and according to Bulletin 18, of the Iowa Station, being in that State the most common and injurious of the two. I am satisfied that we have but one brood in the Epecies now under consideration, at least in the northern part of the State. In fact, I have seen the larvro quite numerous early in July on the premiEes of Mr. E. H. Cushman, near Cleveland, Ohio. I cannot account for the occurrence of the larvre in Central Indiana, in October, and we shall have to consider the species single brooded until someone is for­tunate enough to rear the late appearing species to the adult.

Messrs. 05born and GoEsard of the Iowa Experiment Station recom­mend spraying the vines in sprin~, after the bloom has fallen, with a mixture of one pound of London Purple to two hundred gallons of water and report good success therewith. If used carefully and promptly afte~ the falling of the bloom, there is probably little danger, if any; but for this species, or fcc delayed applications for either one of these insects, I would by all means use powdered Pyrethrum, at the rate of one ounce to three gallons of water. In gardens, if chickens are given the liberty of _ the strawberry bed for a few days before the fruit becomes sufficiently

8 oft for them to peck into, they will do equally or more efficient work than can be done by 8praying. These Strawberry saw-flies are clooely allied to the one that attacks the foliage of the currant and gooseberry, as well as another attacking the raspberry.

THE HARLEQUIN CABBAGE BUG.

Murganti't histr~·onica Hahn.

Ord. HEMIPTERA: Fig. 5, Plate III, Map II. Fam. PE~TATOMIDJE,

This is sometimes called calico back, on account of the numerous and peculiarly shaped red and yellow markings on jet black, which gives the peculiar and striking appearance shown in the illustration. It attacks and feeds on cabb1ge, turnips, radishes, mustard, horseradish, rape, cauli­flower and ~ther cruciferous plants. This is really a Central American species, being originally known only in that country and Mexico.

The first notice we have of the insect in ~he United States may be found in the Practical Entomologist, vol. 1, p. 110, 1866, in which the statement is made that it occurs in Texas and Louisiana, and portions of a. letter from Dr. Gideon Lincecum, of Washington County, Texas, are

36 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION,

printed, in which letter the statement is made that two years before they had gotten into the writer's garden and destroyed every cruciferous plant therein, and that birds seemed to pay no attention to them. Washington county is about sixty miles east of Austin, and not far south of College Station, Brazos county, where the Experiment Station of Texas is now located. As it had already spread over a considerable area of this State and also into Louishna, it will probably be safe to place its advent into • the United States at about 18t0. Ten years later it had pushed r.orth-ward to Mi~s)uri, and six years after, in 1876, had reached Delaware, and in Colorado it had become- destructive. In 1880 it had established itself in l\Iary land,· and it is now known to occur in the southern portion of New Jersey. In the sixth report of the State Entomologist of Illinois, Dr. Cyrus Thoma3 recorded the appearance of the species in Jackson County, Illinois, but recently Prof. G. H. French, who was his a'sistant and who has resided in the near vicinity since that time, writes me that the announcement was probably a mistake, and that he (Prof. French) has but a single specimen from somewhere in Illinois, he does not know where, but that it is not of common occurrence in southern Illinois, a present. In the fall of 1890, I received pupre from Tobbinsport, Indiana, on the Ohio river below Louisville, Ky., with the statement that it· was a new pest and had that season done considerable damage to cab-bage in that vicinity.

The following is clipped from the Farmer's Review, (Chicago, Ill.,) October 16, 1895. Rockport, Ind., is a short distance below Tobbins­port, and it is quite likely that the pest has been in that vicinity since 1890.

HARLEQUIN CA:B:BAGE :BEETLE,

R. L. T., of Rockport, Ind., incloses specimens of beetles that are destroying cabbage plant~ hy s11cking the juices. The insect is known as the Harlequin Cabbage Beetle (orB v,), and is called by some entomologists Strachia histrionica and by others llluTgantia htS~rwn.ca. It prevails largely throughout the south and is a hard bug to fight.

Four years ago, when I came to the Experiment Station, I found in the insect collection a single specimen, collected at Lebanon, '\Varren County, Ohio, but I have never been able to learn of it in that locality since. Last spring I received it twice in one week, once fronr Mr. Harpohl e of Racine, M;eig~:~ county and from Mr. Kinney, Portsmouth, Scioto county, and only rep~n~ly from Mr. Cooley of Manchester, Adams county, all situated alqggJh.~_Qtlio river. Be3ides, I had in August, personally ob-served it along the river from Cheshire, Gallia county, for several miles below. Th!;l .w~s.ent area of distribution, so far as known, is indicated by the accomp:tnying map No. II, by which it will be seen that it has gained a fo.>thold along the extreme southern boundary of the State. It is cer·

SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS, 37

tainly working more injury in that locality than has been reported else­where north of the Ohio river. How far it will extend its spread north­ward and how rapidly, it is impossible to say, but I do not look for it to cover the whole State or spread with any great rapidity, though I do not expect it to die out where it now is.

The eggs are about one-twentieth of an inch long and about two-thirds as wide as long, of the form shown in Fig. 5 c and d, Plate III; the cdor, a short time after being deposited, is white with black bandE', as indicated by the figures. These eggs hatch in three or four days, the yt ung bein'.{ green and black, the green later on giving place to ytllow and Jed. As there are as many as seven or eight generations in a season in the South, it is very likely that there are fully half that many in southern Ohio. Eggs were being deposited fnely along the Ohio river about the middle of August, pupre (shown in h of the figure in Plate III), were sent me from Manchester, early in October, while I received them from Tob­binspJrt, Southern Indian<t, even later in the season, so th:tt I judge the eggs for the brood wintering over are deposited late in August. The pests are often not full grown by the time winter sets in, but pass the time inter­vening between this and spring, as a rule, in or about the old cabbage fields, crawling under the old leaves and other rubbish, wherever they can find protection from the element'3. With the coming of Fpring they make their way forth, and as soon as food is afforded for the young, begin to deposit their eggs. These are laid on the food plants in parallel rows of about six in each.

As the full grown bugs are very di,:l1cult to kill on the cabbage with­out injuring or destroying the plant, two methods may be employed in destroying them in advance of their attack. One way is to place the old caobage otumps and leaves in piles about the fields in the fall, in order to induce the bugs to take refuge among them for protection through the winter; the piles of refuse being burned or so charred as to kill all bugs that have taken up their abode among them. The. other method is to plant out some cruciferous plant that will attract them as soon as they ~ppe:tr in the spring, and when they have collected on these plants, spray them with pure kerosene. Prof. H. E. Weed has found mustard to be an excellent bait in Mississippi, and I have no doubt that it would work equally oatisfactorily in Ohio. I would also advise planting out early a large number of cabbage stumps, which as soon as they begin to put out a young growth, will attract the bugs and these can be destroyed with kerosene. I have not been able to find any natural enemies to aid in keeping the pest under control, but in Louisiana a minute insect de5troys the eggs in great numbers, and we may hope that it will make its way to Ohio, and be able to withstand the northern climate.

38 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION.

THE SQUASH PLANT-LOUSE.

Siphonophora cucurbttre Middleton.

Ord. HEMIPTERA: Fam, APHIDID..E.

There are two kinds of plant-lice that attack cucurbs, the other besides this one being Aphis cucumeris Forbes. As a part of the life his-tory of the one now under consideration was worked out through a por- e tion of the year, at Columbus several years ago, I give here the results as obtained, though, as will be seen, the discoveries were largely acci-dental; another and widely different insect being the real object of study at the time. A good illustration is also offered of the difficulty in follow-ing out a species that bas different food plants at different seasons of' the year, as a change from one to the other often causes radical changes in the appearance of the insect.

During the last days of August, 1891, Dr. Kellicott and myself, in studying the squash borer, Melittia ceto, transplanted to a large breeding cage a number of roots and portions of the stems of squash vines, on one of which was a leaf or two. The cage was filled with earth, dug up in the field, and when the vines were properly transplanted, the cage was cov­ered with fine Swiss muslin, and placed in the insectary. I soon noticed Siphonophora on the stumps of the vines, and before long there sprung up, from the soil in the cage, numbers of plants of Capsella bursa-pastoris and Nepeta glechoma. These plants soon became populated, the squash having died out, &nd, November 4, I took from these apterous oviparous females pairing with winged males, and also, apterous and winged vivi­parous females. None of these, however, could be specially determined by Dr. Riley and his as.3istants. November 23, t.here were still many of the egg-laying females and males to be found, and. a great number of eggs scattered about over the plants. The oviparous female is very robust, body green; eyes brown and coarsely granulated; antennre, except first two joints (the bases only of which are black), tip of beak, feet, tips of heney tubes, black; tips of femora and tibire, dusky; hcney tubes reach­ing half the length of tail, slender.

The males were light bodied, with the wing much longer proportion-ately than in the winged females; black, with margins of abdomen • greenish ; wing veins dusky; bases of wings very light yellowish; antennre very dark brown at base, the remaining portion nearly black; eyes brown; anterior femora very light at base and darker toward extrem-ity; middle and posterior femora with less light color at bases; tibire very dark brown, nearly black; tarsi black; honey tubes long, slender, piceous, darker at base.

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SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 39

The eggs were at first of a glassy green color, but turned to black after being deposited a short time; a, little more than twice as long as broad, and app€ared to be slightly stuck to the leaves of the plants.

During the following March these eggs gradually disappeared, and the plants again became populated with Siphonophora, but specimens sent to Washington were not determinable, except as to genera, and all were wingless viviparous females.

Strongly suspecting that I was dealing with the same species as had been brought into the cage on the squash, there having been no way by which this could have escaped or another species entered, early in April I

' . planted a number of squash seeds in the cage. As soon as the young plants appeared they were at once attacked by apt'ilrous viviparous females, and on April18 I secured winged females. On forwarding these toW ash­ington, my own determination of the species as S. curcurbitm was promptly verified. In this case, the environment was, of course, unnat­ural, and the insects were obliged to use these two species of plants in passing through their cycle, and hence they might find more congenial host plants in the fields; but it seems to me that it would be safe to assume that the melon-louse can readily pass from its summer food plant to either one or both of these, and from them give origin to winged vivi· parous females in the spring, to return to the original host plant.

THE WESTERN CORN·ROOT WORM.

Diabrotica longicornis Say.

Ord. COLEOPTERA: Maps I and II. Fam. CHRYSTI!ELIDJII,

It is not intended to treat of this insect at length, in this place, as it has been fully discussed in Bulletin No. 51, copies of which can be ob­tained on application to the Station. Attention is, however, called to its rapid advance in destructive numbers eastward across the state. Map I, shows its known area of distribution in 1894, while Map II, shows its dis­tribution in 1895, as shown by actual surveys made in the field during August and September .

40 OHIO EXPF.RIMENT STATION.

MAP I.

TAUIIIBULL

WS$1ERN CoRN-ROOT WORM.

!i"Losali'ty wkere it_ WBI/ t11-11t repol'ted as: d~Sttuetive in Ohio11fil.l. ~Area over whien it wa~ known to ooeur i~ 1893. 1[Area over whlch 1t wa- kno!~_ to occur in 189~. •

SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 41

MAP II .

• 0Area over wh 1 en: the Westel'l'l. Co ,n.~ l'o.,e Wo ~lll wa:a kli.own. to o~cur i11 16.95.

o Are.a QVer wh.ieh. the Harl eq1.1.in Cal:Joage Eug • .

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42 OHIO EXPERUIENT STATION,

WHITE ANTS.

Termes fiavipes Kollar.

Ord. lSOPTERA.: Fig, 6, Plate III, Fig. I, Plate IV. Fam. TERMITID..lli.

These are not really ants, and do not belong to the same order of in­sects, but are commonly called such on account of their general resemb­lance to ants both in form and manner of living. Former1y, they were placed in the order N europtera, 1rom two Greek words meaning nerve and wing, but clearly the better method of classification is that indicated by the name of the order here given, which is alEO from two Greek words, isos, equal; and pteron, a wing, referring to the fact that among these in­sects both pairs of wings are similar as to form and structure. They are much more of a tropical insect than otherwise and are more abundant to the southward. They seem to have a strong dislike for the light, and make their way from place to place by means of covered ways, and after reaching their objective point will tunnel it full of galleries, often work­ing great destruction not only to timber of various sorts but also to books, and even buildings are seriously injured by them and this too in Ohio. In their habits and social condition they very closely follow the ants, and in a colony there are three classes, viz. : the. worker, c, Fig. 6, Plate III; the soldier, d, and kings and queens. The figure, a, shows the larva or young,], the pupa, b, winged male and e, the female. As with the ants, the workers provide food for the colony, care for the young and build the nests. The soldiers, which by the way are, as with the workers, made up of both sexes, protect the colony and fight its battles, while the king and queen are the father and mother of, though they do not by any means rule, the colony. The kings and queens are at first provided with wings, but after the maniage flight these are broken off and both become help­less, unless they can find a colony of subjects to care for them they per­ish. If, however, they set up their kingdom among faithful subjects, the female soon becomes a living sack of eggs, perfectly helpless, and is fed by the workers, who also remove the eggs as fast as they are laid and care for the young as soon as they are hatched.

These insects are sometimes quite destructive in Ohio, not only to buildings, but I have had small trees sent me with considerable numbers engaged in burrowing in the roots. Fig. 1, Plate IV, illustrates injuries to cuttings that were being propagated in a greenhouse near Cincinnati, where they became a great nuisance, destroying many cuttings by eating them off in the benches. Rev. Odenbach, of St. Ignatius Collegt>, Cleve­land, wrote me some time ago that he had found them in a dwelling house

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SOliE DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 43

where they had been working for four years, mining the timbers of the lower floor, the damage having been ascribed to dry rot.

Wherever their habitations or galleries can be fumigated with hi­sulphide of carbon these industrious little pests can be easily destroyed.

THE HOSTILE LEAF HOPPER.

Deltocephalus inirnicus Say. Ord. HEMIPTERA: Fig. 2, Plate IV. Fam. J ASSIDlE,

This is one of quite a number of small, very active insects, that at some seasons of the year literally swarm in pastures and meadows, and are not infrequently mistaken by farmers for young grasshoppers, Hes­sian flies and chinch bugs. The young are active, leaping about until full grown, when they both leap and fly. They are not especially fonJ of grain plantEt, but Prof. Osborn, in Iowa, has demonstrated that they work considerable injury to growing grasses, the stems of which they punc­ture and suck the juices. The studies here given were made in Indiana, and are given here, not so much on acco"\].nt of their economic value, as a contribution to our knowledge of their life histoyy.

Several years ago, on November 11, a number of adults were placed on young wheat plants that bad been reared indoors, and hence were free from affection by insect attack. The females began at once to oviposit in the tissue of the leaves, and the young could be observed developing within the eggs, especially after they had become well advanced. Young were especially noticeable just prior to their emerging by their eyes being jet black. The young moulted a few days after hatching, and, so far as I could observe, but twice afterwards. December 22, one of the first indi­viduals to appear moulted for the last time, and on the following day adults were out in numbers. It will be observed that 41 days were re­quired for the development of the insect from egg to adult. It is not un­likely that the species hibernates in the egg state in the leaves of grass, though it would seem probable that it may also live over as adults. My wheat plants were kept growing in glass tubes, probably an inch and a half in diameter, and in a temperature Qf probably not far from 70° Fah.

Material, kept for description, has been spoiled by age and it is now impossible to describe the earlier stages from it, else such would be in­cluded in this note.

44 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION.

WEB-WORMS,

arambus zeellus Fernald; a. laqueatellus Clem., a. interminellus Walk; 0. mutabilis Clem., C. luteolellus Clem.,

Ord. LEPIDOPTERA: Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Plate IV. Fam. C&AMBID1E.

There are quite a number of very common, white millers, that are to be observed either resting on blades or stems of grass as shown at extreme right in Fig. 4, or else flying about as indicated in Fig. 4d. Just how many species there are in Ohio, whose larvre or caterpillars attack grass and the crops of wheat, corn and oats that follow grass crops, it is not now possible to say. The first, in the above list of !Optcies, I have not reared in Ohio, though there is very slight doubt but that it inhabits the State, as it is known to occur from Maine to California. The next three species were collected in abundance in grass lands the past year, while the last was reared in 1893, from larvm engaged in destroying corn, in Ashtabula county. The manner in which growing corn is attackEd by these worms is shown in Fig. 3, Plate IV. The manner of attacking grass is shown in Fig. 4, which illustrates another but not distantly al­lied species which has similar habit~:;, in New York. In case ot oats, a crop that until this year I had not known to be seriously injured by these larvm, the plants are eaten off at or just below the surface of the ground. All of these larvm have a strong resemblance to each other, and the ordinary farmer will not be likely to se~ any difference between them. The enlarged illustration, to the right. in Fig. 4, shows their form and markings, the color varying from brown to yellowish and dingy, dirty white. They are usually somewhat hairy, as shown in Fig. 3, and their common nama of W eb-worm!l comes from their constructing a sack by webbing together particles of earth and so arranging it that the opening will be near to the food-plant, as shown also in Fig. 3a and in Fig. 5, which represents the nest or sack of C. interrninellus. The eggs are also much alike, the forms being shown, much enlarged in Figil. 6 and 7, the. color being usually creamy yellow to nearly white, changing to orange or reddish when near hatching. The eggs are deposited during June and July with some species, while with others ovipol'ition probably does not begin much before the latter part of July and extends through August and possibly into September. From this it will be seen that the young hatch in late summer and become partially grown before winter stops their feeding and forces them to seek protection from the weather. With the return of warm weather these worms begin to feed on the young grass, and the majority at least continue to do so until the last of May or first of June, when they cease to feed, become shorter and more robust

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SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 45

until the skin splits and reveals a chrysalis, white at first, but soon changing to some shade of brown, within which the moth is formed and from which it escapes during the period previously indicated.

The moths are illustrated at 2 in Fig. 3, and Figs. 4d, 8, 9, the last two showing the markings of the fore wing in Crambus laqueatellus and the one preceding it to the fore wing of 0. intermmetlus.*

The larvre or caterpillars of this genus of moths are largely at least grafs feeders, and have c:>me to attack cultivated grains gradually, as· the native grasses have become ·exterminated with the advance of agriculture.

Just when they began their encroachments upon the cultivated grains and grasses it is impossible to say, but it was doubtless many years ago, although their reputation for this injury is quite recent. In 1885, Mr. B. F. Ferris, of Sunman, Indiana, wrote ine that fully 30 years before he had lost an entire field of young corn by the ravages of a small, dark-colored worm that enveloped itself in a web, and which, for want of a better name he called web-worm. The same year, great numbers of a whitish miller with brownish stripes on its wings were noted about the fields, and without any other reason for thinking so besides their great numbers, Mr. F. believed them to be the cause of such numbers of web-worms. Hon. Joseph Ratlifl, of Richmond, Indiana, once told me that many yeara ago, while he was a lad, his iather used to send him to the cornfields to search out and destroy the cut-worms, and he distinctly recollected that he was especially cautioned to look closely for those enclosfd in a web, as they were the most destructive and continued their ravages later in the season than most of the larger cut-worms. It has. been my business during the . last fifteen years to watch more or less carefully the insects attacking crops planted on sod lands, and not only have I seldom seen a field that was absolutely free of these pests, but a gradually increasing loss has been occasioned by the ravages, especially as regarding the corn crop. Meadows have suffered, but to a less extent.

The preEent year, in Ohio, I have witnessed more wide spread, severe injury from these web-worms than ever before. Not only have whole fields of corn been swept out of existence, but fields of young oats have been as completely destroyed, and on being resown have again been as utterly ruined a second time, In some portions of the State, almost without exc~ption, oats or corn sown or planted on sod lands was entirely destroyed, and in one or two cases even on ground that was the previous

"'NoTE: Mr. E. P. Felt, in Bulletin 64, of the Cornell University Ag~icultural Ex­periment Station, has given the results of quite extensive and very careful studies of a large number of species of Cram bus, from ·which the illustrations of the wings and the eggs, as well as considerable information contained in this notice have been taken.

F.M.W.

46 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION.

year devoted to wheat, these crops have suffered also. In most cases oats were not resown, and corn was not replanted until the last week in May, and such escaped attack. There is no doubt but that serious injury to the corn crop can be escaped by delaying planting until this date, if farmers could only know for certain what was coming; but no one can as yet forecast the entomological horizon with sufficient accuracy to afford this protection, and farmers can only know of the presence of the scourge after it is fully upon them. The grain grower is in an entirely different position from that of the fruitgrower, in that, b"e a remedy ever so efficient, his area of cultivation is so much gre&.ter that, even if the cost of materials for a remedy is not great, the time req1Hred for its application would render it worthless for his use, and while one part of his premises was being treated, the remainder would be ravaged. For this reason it has always appeared to me as though the farmer must protect himself against these foes of his crops by his management of the latter and of his fields. In other words, he must plow when the disturbing of the soil will work the greatest hardships to the insect enemies, and provide certain kind3 of food plants with as frequent and radical interruptions as possible. For pre­ventive measures against web-worms, then, I would recommend plowing sod land in August, or early September at latest, in order to destroy the very young larvre; in case this is aot practical, than 1 very early spring plowing and frequent cultivation, with planting delayed until the latter part of May; or if this cannot be done, plow late in May and plant immediately. With twenty-five years experience on the farm and in the

. laboratory, I am convinced that the farmers, at least those of the Missis­sippi basin, will be obliged to change their management of grass lands. Largely at least, a spring crop is used to follow a grass crop, when it will be at once seen that unless something is done to destroy the insects, the farmer is only removing one kind of food and replacing it with another equally agreeable to these insects. Either a fall grain must follow a grass crop, or else the ground must be kept free of food for the yotmg, while the mother is laying her eggs-when her instincts will teach her to seek other localities in which to oviposit-or the young must be starved either be­fore winter sets in or in spring before the crop is planted, or the planting must be delayed until the feeding season is past, which in most of our grass insects is the last of May or fust of June. •

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SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 47

THE POWDER-POST WORM.

Lyctus striatus Say.

Ord. CoLEOPTERA: Map II. Fam. PTINIDB

This is not one of the true wood-borers, but belongs to. a small family of beetles, which includes also what are commonly known as ''dt-ath watches" on account ofthe peculiar call of the male for its mate, which resembles somewh!tt the t:cking of a watch. The name death watch has been given these beetles on account of a superatition among the ignorant that their noise betokened the coming of death. Most of the family bore in wood in a more or less advanced state of decay, and I think this one works, very largely at least, in the sap 1v )od. Dr. Leconte reared it from hickory many years ago, (Am. Ent. vol. 3, p. 237) while Dr. Packard states that it is "found in rotten oak wood, and is not known to be in­jurious" (5~h Rep. U. S. Ent. Comm., p. 223) though Mr. G. C. Davis observed the beetles issuing from red oak floors of the Michigan Agricultural College, which floors had been in place two years, (22d Rep. Ent. Sec. Ont., p. 81) and Coquillette records the species as breeding in grape, orange and sycamore, in California, (Insect Life, IV, p. 261); and Hopkins to the list adds the yellow locust and wild cherry (Bull. 32, W.Va. Exp. Sta., p. 189.).

Tbe beetle is quite slender, brown, and about one fourth of an inch in length. The l1trvre lie in their burrows in a curved position, are pro­vided with legs and resemble minute white grubs. They are attacked in their burrows by a small, hymenopterous parasite, which destroys a great number ofthem.

In the fall of 1891, and while I was in the employ of the U. S. Department of Agriculture as special field agent for the Division of Ento­mology, complaint came to me from a firm of manufacturers of agricul­tural implements, located in western Ohio, asking for an investigation of a borer that was eating not only into tbe floors of their shops but also into the rosts that supported the floors of the several stories. A visit to the shops soon revealed the depredator as the species now under consider­ation, and the attack appeared to be a serious one. By the aid of the foreman, I was able to trace the depredator to a lot of oak lumber that had been piled in the yards for the purpose of seasoning it, and when this had been taken inside for the purpose of working it up the borers were also carried along, and after once having been introduced they made their way throughout the entire building, but did not attack the wood­work of the implements that had been constructed and were stored await­ing shipment. They appeared to attack only the sap wood of oak, but would riddle this, no matter where it was located, whether in the floor of the store rooms, where all was quiet, or in portions that were constantly

48 OHIO EXPERilliENT STATION,

shaken by the rumble of machinery. In the posts and supports, a thin outside covering was left untouched, while inside of this all of the Eappy part was soon reduced to powder; even the elevator did notewape. From blocks of in!ested oak I was enabled to rear not only the adult beetles, but a large number of the little honey-yellow parasite, Hecabolu8 lycti Cresson. It might be worth while to say that in the burrows of the larvre I found a slender white larva that was determined for me at the Depart· ment of Agriculture by Dr. Riley or some of his assistants, as probably e being that of a species of Paromalu8. Both males and females of Lyctus were reared and these were observed to pair, but I got no eggs. The larvre appeared to burrow largely parallel with the grain of the wood, and pupated in the channels without forming a cocoon, but the parasite formed a thin cocoon, within which it passed through the pupal state.

Various remedial measures were recommended and tried with vary­ing success. Kerosene applied to the posts had little effect, and in the paint shop the frequent rubbing of paint brushes over the surface of posts did not appear to inconvenience the borers. The only place where they did not appear to depredate was in the basements, which were of necessity more or less damp. On the floors kero;;~;ne was effective for a time, but later investigations have shown that in time this would all evaporate and the beetles would then commence their attack a second time. The only application that was thoroughly effective and also a protection from future attack, was a very thin mixture of turpentine and asphalt, or coal tar. This was applied to the posts and pillars by boring small holes obliquely inward and downward and then filling them with this mixture, which· would quickly penetrate even the powdery mass in the b11rrows, not only killing all life with which it came in contact, but also carrying with it the asphalt, thereby rendering the uneaten portions permanently distaste­ful to the insects.

SPRAYING WITH ARSENITES VS. BEES.

Although much has been said with regard to the effect upon bees of spraying fruit trees with arsenites while in bloom, there seem to have been no careful experiments made for the purpose of securing exact proof • and therefore all assertions were necessarily very largely opinionative. Bee-keepers w.ere, as a rule, of the opinion that bees would be killed by spraying the bloom; some because their bees bad died, others because some one else said such results would follow. Most entomologists did not care to express an opinion based on the very little accurate information on hand, while others, including the writer, doubtt!d the fatality of the

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SPRAYING VS. BEES. 49

measure, bfcause it was thought that the poison thus applied would either hLst the bloom and thus render it distasteful, or the poison would not reach the nectar, and, being insoluble, otherwise would not effect the bees. In order to fully test the matter, the following experiment was under­taken, being in accordance with an agreement made at the Washington meeting of the Aesociation of Economic Entomol, gists, by which a series of fxptriments with the same. object in view were to be carried on by Mr. Jams Fletcher, Entomologist of the Dominion of Canada, Dr. J. A.

Lintner, State Entomologist of New York, and myself. A mixture of Paris green, four ounces to fifty gallons of water, wae

sprayfd on a Lombard plum tree in full bloom, at 2 p.m., April29, 1892. The quantity of the mixture used was sufficient to wet thoroughly with­out dripping. The upper portion of the tree down to the lower branches was covered with a square of thin brown sheeting of the brand" Utica C" and held down by ropes and stakes at the corners. The lower portion, including a space of about eight feet Equare, was inclosed by mosquito net­ting sewed to the sheeting above and fastened below so as to prevent the e~cape of the bees. The ground thus inclosed was covered with the same m1terial as the top cover. At 7:30 p m. the hive, which had been placed near this tree some two weeks before. was moved into the inclosure and the whole secured. Dead bees began to be observed on the ground cover early on the morning of the 30th, and by 10 a. m., a considerable number had died and fallen on the cloth. Others were evidently exhausting thtmselves in trying to escape. Atl :30 p.m. there were a large number of dead and dying bees on the cloth, and it was thought advioable tore­move the cover from the tree and allow the injured bees to Heape. At 5 p. m. several hundred bees were either dead or dying, and enough were gathered from the cloth on the ground to fill a box o£2115-16 cubic inches capacity, while others were clinging to the upper covering nearly or quite dead.

May 2, four analyses were made by Mr. Falkenbach, at that time chemist of the Station, using the Marsh method, which indicates only the presence or absence of arsenic without revealing the exact amount when present. First, a large number of the dead bees were test£d and arsenic found present. Second, more bees were thoroughly washed tore­move any of the poison which might have become attached to their bod­ies, but the presence of arsenic was clearly shown. Third, a large num­ber of bees were washed as in preparing for the second analysis, and their bodies dividtd, the abdomens being analyzed separately, but the pr·s~nce of arsenic was still shown, though but a mere trace. Fourth, the rtmaic­der of the bodies, less the wings, were subjected to !\,1e same analyoi2, and

3 EX. ST. nuL. GS

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50 OlliO EXPERIMENT STATION.

arsenic was shown to be present in a greater amount than in the third analysis.

The balance of the dead bees were thrown out, but several days later, during which time there had been a severe thunder shower, a considerable number were picked up and thoroughly washed, first with water·and then with a weak solution of ammonia, as a still further precaution toward emoving all poison from the outer surface of the bodies of the bees. The • results of the analysis, however, did not materially differ from those prev· iously made.

The second experiment was on the apple, the colonies of bees, two in number, having been placed under separate trees several weeks earlier. Six trees were sprayed while in full bloom, four of these standing in a row, sheets twenty-four feet square being placed underneath each, and, in case of the two under which bees had been placed, the sheets were drawn under the hives. Two other trees a short distance away were treated the same, except that sheets were placed underneath but one. All trees were sprayed May 4 with a like solution, as in case of first experiment. For one week search. was made each morning for dead bees, both under the trees and about the hives. At the end of this time fifty-six bees had been picked up, one of them belonging to a wild variety, and one young one had been carried out from one of the hives. Analyses of some of these showed traces of arsenic. Although bees were, on several occasions dur­ing the time given, observed frequenting the bloom in great numbers, nevertheless the weather conditions were, as a rule, unfavorable to the full activity of bees. At times there was a sharp, damp wind blowing, and at others it was cloudy with light rains. Therefore, I did not con­sider the results gained as being satisfactory, though I believed I had shown the fallacy of attempting to get results of any value to bee-keepers by experimenting with bees in confined quarters. Also, I believed I had shown that during seasons of bad weather-that is, cold and cloudy with light rains, but insufficient to wash the poison from the trees-little or no fatal results to bees will follow spraying apple trees, while in bloom. I did feel, however, that the all-important questior.., of what the result would be if the weather conditions were every way fayorable to the full • activity of the bees, still remained unsettled.

A third experiment was attempted on the bloom of the raspberry, but frequent drenching rains which occurred almost daily, and often several times in a day, forced us to abandon it. I hoped, however, another year to be able to secure more decided and satisfactory results.

On account of the meteorological conditions under which the exper­iments were carried on they never were deemed conclusive in p~int of definite results, even by myself, and I had only been waiting a f&.vorable

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I!!PRA YING VS. BEES. 51

season in order to finish the work. In the spring of 1894 the time appeared to have arrived in which I might hope to solve the problem.

On May 2, two apple trees in full bloom-and the blossoms were , abundant-were thoroughly sprayed with a mixture of one ounce of Paris . green to twelve gallons of water. After the water had evaporated the poison could be clearly observed on both bloom and foliage. The appli­cation was made during the forenoon, the day being warm and clear, and during the afternoon quite a number of bees were caught while visiting the bloom and marked with carmine ink. The hives were located but a few yards distant from the trees, both being situated at a consider­able distance from any other trees at that time in bloom. None of these marked bees were afterwards found dead about the hives. During the night following the application there was a rainfall of .20 inch. On the following day bees were caught and killed by being dropped into a cyan­ide bottle where cyanide was embedded in plaster of Paris, after the usual custom. As soon as the bees were dead they were dissected as follows: The posterior legs with pollen attached were severed from the bodies and placed in a small glass vial and securely corked. The contents of the abdomens, including the honey sacks, were next dissected out and placed in a ·separate vial, and the same mode of procedure was followed with the whole inside of the thorax, this giving me the entire bee except the head, anterior and middle legs, wings, and chitinous walls of the thorax and abdomen. Besides these a number of the bees were kept intact. The whole series was submitted to L. M. Bloomfield, assistant professor of chemistry of the Ohio State University, to be tested for arsenic by the Marsh method. Mr. Bloomfield found the weight of material submitted in each case to be as follows: Posterior legs, with pollen attached, .3498 gram; contents of abdomens and honey sacks, .0990 gram; ditto thorax, .0710 gram. After the usual tests to prove the absence of arsenic in the reagents it was found that no arsenic was associated with the posterior legs or the pollen with which they were loaded, none had been left in the thoracic matter, but the material from the abdomens gave unmistakable proof of the presence of arsenic. The entire bodies of a number· of the bees, taken at the same time from the same tree, were then washed with diluted ammonia water, three washings failing to give a trace of arsenic, but the bodies after being thus treated, and being boiled in water slightly acidulated gave distinct traces of the poison, thus eliminating any possi-

- bility of the poison having been introduced into the abdominal matter at the time of dissection and from the exterior. May 15, a crab apple tree (Oratxgus), was sprayed with a mixture of the same ratio of Paris green as before, but in this case only the contents of the abdomens were

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52 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION.

retained. This matter, to the weight of .1463 gram, treated as in the pre­ceding, gave unmistakable proof of the presence of arsenic.

Just at this stage of my investigations, chance, if such a thing there be, threw in my way still more conclusive proof. A few days prior to my last experiment, probably about May 10, a small apple orchard on the Experiment Station farm was sprayed with Bordeaux mixture, to which had been added Paris green at the rate of 4 ounces to each fifty gallons of the mixture. The bloom had at this time nearly all fallen from the trees, the exceptions being an occasional belated cluster. Three colonies of bets, recently brought on to the premises, were located near by, to all appearances in a perfectly healthy condition. A few days after the appli­cation of the poisoned Bordeaux mixture one colony suddenly became extinct and a second greatly reduced in numbers, dead bees being abund­ant about both hives. From these colonies I was able to secure dead bees, and both honey from uncapped cells and dead brood from the hive that had been so mysteriously depopulated. When tested for arsenic by . Mr. Bloomfield, precisely as with the other matter, contents of abdomens of the dead bees to the amount of .2334 gram revealed the preEence of arsenic; 3.7061 grams of honey gave no trace of poison, while 1 8481 grams dead brood showed it to be present, and the entire bodies of the aead bee~, thrice washed in ammonia water, as before explained, gave traces

' of arsenic. In regard to the honey I can only say that it was from uncapped cells, which might and probably did contain last year's honey that was still being i1sed for a partial food supply by the. bees.

Briefly recapitulated, arsenic was found in the contents of the ab­domens of bees frequenting recently sprayed blosEoms, and we are at least free to assume that more or less of it was contained in the honey sacs. The dead bees, three times washed in ammonia water, the latter not revealing the presence of arsenic externally, when tested showed its presence internally. Brood from uncapped cells (larvffi) of a colony suddenly dying without other apparent cause gave evidence of having ·died from the t ff~ct of arsenic which could have been introduced only from w·ithout.

In summing up the ma.tter, then, I can see no other conclusion that can .be drawn from the results of my experiments than that bees are liable to be poisoned by spraying the bloom of fruit trees, the liability increaE­ing in proportion as the weather is favorable for the activity of the bees, aud that all bloom must have fallen from the trees before the danger will have ceased.

Finally, I believe we now have the first conclusive proof of the fffect on bees of the use of arsenical poisons in the orchard while the trEes are in bloom. Heretofore all has been unc;:ert{l.int:r~ tll.e 11tatewe:t\tij

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HABITS OF LIMAX CAMPESTRIS.

made being based on either pure assumption, or, as in one instance on the result of penning up the bees and feeding them on poisoned sweetened water. It is certainly to the credit of the entomological fraternity of America that among their number but few could be found willing to risk a positive assertion based on such slender and unreliable information, and I feel that lam fully justified in pointing out the fact that in the case of two entomologists, Dr. Lintner and Mr. Fletcher, in the face of the legisla­tive bodies of their respective States, both refused to commit themselves to the extent of making positive statements either one way or the other.

NOTE ON THE CARNIVEROUS HABITS OF Limax ca~pestris BINNEY.

' In the spring of 1892, in the insectary at Columbus, Ohio, quite a

large number of this slug were present on one of the benches among the various plants kept growing there for experimental uses, among which were the common doc"k, lettuce, wheat and other plants of a like charac­ter. I was somewhat surprised one day to observe one of the slugs stretch out and grasp a plant-lome, hundreds of which were swarming on the leaves of the dock, whtre they were breeding in myriads. The slug not only dispoEEd of one aphis, but another and another followed in quick succe.:sion. The slug was carefully preserved and forwarded to the De­partment of Agriculture at Washington, and from there sent to Mr. Binney, the original describer, at Burlington, Vt., who replied that he had never heard of the species feeding in that way before, "still", he re­marked, "slug;; will eat almost anything that presents itself-vegetable matter usually, but in captivity they prey upon one another-will take sponge cake, strawberries, fluur, lettuce, etc. The marginal teeth oftheir lingual membrane are aculeate. In the true carniverous slugs all the teeth are such."

At the other f:nd of this bench, perhaps four yards distant, was grow­ing probably a square yard of wheat, and adjoining this and partly among it was a similar plat of lettuce, which is given by Mr. Binney as one of its food-plants.

The molluscs had been observed repeatedly feeding on the lettuce, of which, as the plants were large, there was always more than an abun­dance. But they also climb€d the leaVfs and stems of the wheat to the height ol 8 or 10 inches, and crawling along the larger leaves cleared them almost completely of the Aphids, the major portion having origina'f d there, and which, in this case, were Phorodon mahaleb Fonsc. So, tht n, it would seem that this food wa3 taken of their own volition, and indeed, they made considerable effort to reach it, as they did not, so 'ar us I could

54 O!IIO EXPl!IBIH-EMT STATION.

see, attack the wheat. The slugs were observed to feed as above stated only during the night and on afternoons of very dark cloudy days.

The market gardener or florist, whose interest is wholly in his plants, would, as a matter of course, be quick to observe any injury to them. The entomologist, whose eyes and mind have had a different training, would be much more likely to notice such variations in food habits. e Therefore, it seems to me at least possible for the much abused slug to, in part at least, repay for the injury caused by its plant feeding proclivi-ties by destroying other enemies of that plant. The lettuce was also in-fested by another species of Aphis, and, had the slugs confined their at-tention t_o these, it might have been, to some extent, an act of self-preser-vation, on the score of protecting their food-plant. But they voluntarily went to the wheat, upon which they did not subsist, nor was it likely that the juices of the Aphids which they ate savored of lettuce. It is entirely beyond my desire to magnify either the importance of these ob-servations or the possible usefulness of this Limax. The desire to be just, without being unjustly just, has prompted the presentation of this matter.

SUMMARY.

Canker Worms (p. 21) are the larvre from eggs deposited on the trees by light colored, wingless moths. TheseJworms or caterpillars have a looping gait and let themselves down from the limbs by a fine silken thread. There is but one annual brood. Spraying with arsenical poisons while the worms are young is the best remedy, though the trees may be banded with tar or tarred paper to prevent the femalEs from ascending them· to lay their eggs.

The Fruit Bark Beetle (p. 23) is a small brown insect, coming to us froro Europe, that burrows into the bark and deposits eggs in its burrows; the eggs hatch to small white worms which burrow under the outer bark and between it and the wood. These are not supposed to attack perfectly healthy trees, and the best preventive is to keep trees in a healthy, vigor-ous condition. A whitewash in which a quart of salt has been dissolved • in each three gallons may be applied, and it is likely that a thorough application of Bordeaux mixture may be of some value as a repellant.

The Ring-legged Tree-bug (p. 26) is a large, gray, flattened bug, shaped somewhat like the Stink bug, and breeds on fruit and other trees, sucking the sap from the tender shoots. Kerosene emulsion will kill them.

The Clover-leaf Weevil (p. 27) is a large brownish and yellowish snout beetle whose larvre or young feed on the leaves of the red clover in May. It would probably become a serious pest but it is destroyed by a fungus

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SOME DESTRUCTIVE INSEC'.l'S, 55

which will probably render any artificial remedies unnecessary. It is also of European or Asiatic origin.

The Clover Root-borer (p. 31) is a small brown beetle closely related to the Fruit Bark-borer and like it is of foreign origin. It lays its eggs in the crown of the plants, in spring, and the young worms from these eggs burrow into and destroy the roots. Rapid rotation and summer plowing are the remedies.

The Strawberry Saw-fly (p. 33) lays its eggs in the leafstalk and the young hatching from these eggs devour the leaves. In the species here treated there seems to be but one brood each year, which may be destroyed by spraying the infested vines with a mixture of one ounce of powdered Pyrethrum in two or three gallons of water.

The Harlequin Cabbage-bug (p. 35). This is a southern insect related to the chinch bug and squash bug, and has only recently appeared in Ohio. It punctures the leaves of cabbage and other crucilerous plants and sucks the juices, cau.sing injury and death to the plants. There are several broods each season. This can not be poisoned, but must be attracted to plants that have been put out as baits, and after attracting the bugs to these they can be sprayed with pure kerosene. The bugs may also be attracted to piles of old stumps and leaves of cabbage placed about the fields and gardens in the fall and these burned during winter or in spring, before the bugs have abandoned them. -

.J The SquaBh Plant-louse (p. 38) breeds on the leaves of squash and melons, often covering the under side of the leaves and injuring them by sucking the juices and causing them to curl. Fumigating with bisul­phide of carbon has been found effective in some cases.

The Western Corn-root Worm (p. 39) is making its way eastward across the State.. The adult is a small, green beetle, closely related to the striped cucumber beetle, and deposits its eggs about the roots of corn in August and September. These eggs hatch the following spring and the young make their way to the roots and feed upon them, often destroying them so effectually that the whole plant is caused to fall over and die. A rota­tion of crops is a most effectual remedy.

White Ants (p. 42,) as they are called, are destructive to buildings, furni­ture and even growing plants. They are shaped and their habits are much like true ants. They work in burrows and covered ways, and whenever these can be fumigated with bisulphide of carbon they can be destroyed.

Web-worms (p. 44) arethelarvre or caterpillars if slender, white or whitish moths that lay their eggs among the grasses in summer, and the young , hatch shortly after, becoming partly grown before winter, pass the winter in this stage and :finish their growth in spring, transforming to millers in early aummer. These web-worms are usually more destructive to crops

OHiO EXPERIMENT STATtON.

following a pasture or meadow, but sometimes dEstroy me1doV!"s. The most practical measures for preventing their ravages are to summer plow, or plow· t arly in spring and cultivate until late in May, or plow and p!ant late in May. ·

The Putvder-post Worm (p. 47) is the larva of a· specif s of small, brown bEetle, and works chit fly at least in sap-wood of the oak. Treating with kerosene will kill them, and an application of turpentine in which a small amount of asphalt or coal tar has been dissolved will both destroy the borers and protect the wood from future attack.

Spraying fruit trees while in bloom, (p. 48,) with arsenical mixtures, is dangerous and in fair weather is liable to not only kill the bees that frequent the bloom, but also to destroy the young brood that are bt ing fed at the time. Spraying should not be done until all the bloom has fallen.

The Slug, Limax, (p. 53,) though known to destroy plants in green­houses and conservatories, has been found to destroy plant lice, sonie times termed the green fly.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, plate I, are from the Indiana Experiment Station, and used here through the courtesy of Prof. James Troop.

Fig. 8 of same plate was received through the kindness of Mr. L. 0. Howard, and used by permission of the Secretary of Agriculture.

Fig. 2, plate II, came from Prof. Otto Lugger. Figs. 3, plate III, and 2 and 4 (except illustration of moth at ex­

treme right) are used through the kindness of Prof. Lawrence Bruner. Fig. 6, plate III, was received from Prof. John B. Smith. FigP. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and that of the moth at extreme right of Fig. 4, all

plate IV, were received from Prof. M. V. Slingerland, of the Cornell In­Eectary.

Figs. 4, plate III, and 1, plate IV are original.

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PLATE t.

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9 Fig. I .

Fig. 2.

Fig. 4·

Fig. 3· Fig. 7·

Fig. 6,

Fig. 8.

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PLATE Il

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Jt; Fig. I.

Fig. 2.

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PLATE III.

Fig. I.

Fig. 3 .

Fig. 4 .

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PLATE IV.

Fig. I .

Fig. 3· Fig. 2 •

Fig, 9·

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EXPLANATION OF PLATES .

PLATE I.

Fig. 1: The Canker Worm, Anisopteryx 11ernata Peck., a, eggs natural size; b, ditto, magnified and viewed endwise; c, canker worm·; d, cocoon; e, pupa; /, male moth; g, female, slightly enlarged. After Riley.

Fig. 2 : The Fall Canker Worm, Anisopteryx pometaria Ha.rris; a, male moth; b, female moth: e, eggs; j, canker worm; g, pupa. After Riley.

Fig. 3: Fruit Bark Borer, Scolytm rugulosm Ratz., adult borer. Fig. 4: Holes made in bark by adult borer. Fig. 5: Pupa of Fruit Bark borer, greatly enlarged. Fig. 6: Larva of Fruit Bark borer, greatly enlarged. Fig. 7: Section of tree showing burrows of larva under bark.

Figs. 3-7, after Forbes. Fig. 8: The Ring-legged Tree Bug, Brochymena annulata Fa b., adult ; under surface

allown at left, natural length shown by line at right of right hand figure. After Howard.

PLATE IL

Fig. 1: Clover Leaf Weevil, Phytonomus punctatus Fab. a, the egg enlarged ; b, b, b, b, the larvre at different stages of growth, feeding; c, the young larva; d, its head from beneath, and e, its jaw, enlarged; j, the cocoon and meshes of the same; enlarged at g; "• the pupa; i, the beetle in natural size; j, side view of the beetle, and k, dorsal view of the same; land m, foot and antenna of the beetle, enlarged. After Riley.

Fig. 2: The parasitic fungus that attacks the larva or young of the Clover Leaf Weevil; Entomophthora sphre>·osperma Fresen. A, caterpillar of Pieris brassiere killed by this fungn~; a, the hyphre growing out from it. B, the same at a later stage, and en­tirely enveloped by the fungus. O, cross section through B; a, cuticula of caterpillaq b, tnchre; c, remains of food, all th0 soft parts of the caterpillar are replaced by myce­lium threads, which have, at d, penetrated through the skin and formed spores at .. D, a, fruit-hypbre; b, basidia; c, Fpores. E, single spore. F, a single spore a, producin" a mycelium thread with secondary epores band c. G, a piece of skin wi·h germinatinc spores a penetrating the Fldn at b, en<l growing in the interior at c. J, branched my­celial thread. K, mycelial thre,,ds bearing resting spores; a, filled with potoplasm, t\, emptied; b, devacping, and b1 , mature resting spores. L, mature resting Fpores with a thick envelope and fat drops within. After Brefeld.

PLATE III •

Fig. 1: Larva of Clover Leaf Weevil attacked by fungus, showing the manner ia which a deceased larva will cling to end of blade of grass, or other similar object. After Arthur.

Fig. 2: The Clover Root Borer, Hylastes tr·ifolii Mull., a, a, a, burrows made by the insect; b, larva, lateral v"ew; c, pupa, ventral view; d, beetle, dorsal view; b, c, d, en­largerl. After Riley.

Fig. 3: The Strawberry Saw-fly, Harpiphorus maculatus Norton. 1, under aide of ohry~alis; 2, side view of same; 3, perfect fly, all enlarged; 4, larva crawling; 6, at; rest; 5, perfect insect with wings closed, and 7, the cocoon, all natural siz3; 8, one of *he antenna; 9, egg, both enlarged. After Riley.

4* EX. ST. BUL. 68

OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION.

Fig. 4: Leaf of strawberry showing place of oviposition and part of epidermil N­

moved to show young ready to emerge. Original. Fig. 5: The Harlequin Cabbage Bug, Murgantia histrianica Hahn., a, b, young bup,

aatural size shown by line at right ; c, eggs, natural size and d, enlarged with ends sho• ing position in cluster at e; {, adult with wings closed and g, with wings spread, 'ltoth natural size. After Riley.

Fig. 6: The White Ant, Termes jlavipes Koller., a, larva; b, winged male ; e, worker; d, soldier; e, large female; J, pupa. After Riley.

PLATE IV.

Fig. 1: Plants injured in greenhouse benches by White Ants. Original. Fig. 2: The Hostile Leaf Hopper, Ddtocephalus inimicus Say. Adult. .After

Osborn. Fig. 3: The Corn Web-worm, arambus zeellus Fernald. 1, web-worm; 2, adult

moth; 3, injured corn plant showing web of the depredator at a. After Forbes. Fig. 4: Orambus vulgivagellus ,- a, the larva; b, larval case in grass; e, cocoon in the

ground; d, moth, a dark specimen; e, wing of lighter specimen; f, moth at rest; g, 811 enlarged, its natural siz~ shown beside it. After Lintner. The first vertical illustratioa at the right shows an enlarged view of the larva, also of this species, and is after Lint­

·ner also. The illustration at extreme right in Fig. 4 shows the moth arambus alboola­tldlus at rest on blade. of grass. After Felt.

Fig. 5: Nest of larva of arambus interminellus, enlarged. After Felt. Fig. 6 : Egg of arambvs interminellus enlarged. After Felt. Fig. 7: Egg, enlarged, of Orambus laqueatellus. After Felt. Fig. 8 : Fore wing of a. interminellus, enlarged. After Felt. Fig. 9: Fore wing of a. laqueatellus, enlarged. After Felt.

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