sex of the patients applying to them. This is of more importance than would at first sight appear. It must be remembered that the skin is torn and lacerated by the victim's scratching, from which we have an artificial inflammation of the surface, to be always taken into consideration in our method of treatment. A thickskinned laborer needs very different applications from a delicate child, or feeble woman. We therefore again caution against self-treatment.

A single word in regard to the clothing. All under-clothes should be washed thoroughly. Outside garments, contrary to the generallyreceived idea, do not need anything done for them. In the great hospital at Vienna, fifteen hundred cases are treated yearly, and no attempt at disinfecting the clothing is found necessary. The mite lives in the skin. It will therefore be seen that contagion comes from personal intercourse, particularly from hand to hand. The most high-bred, refined, and cleanly, are not exempt. Although thus highly contagious from the mite being passed from one to another, yet students of medicine in contact with it rarely get the itch; and the writer has examined and handled hundreds of cases with impunity.

A NEW BEAN-WEEVIL.

BY S. S. RATHVON, LANCASTER, PA.
(Bruchus obsoletus, Say.)

A new destructive insect belonging to the Bruchus family of Beetles has developed in Lancaster county within the last five years, infesting the ripe seed-beans. Dr. Jno. L. LeConte, after examination, is of opinion that it should be referred to Bruchus obsoletus of Say, "though there still seems to be some doubt upon the question." Dr. L. writes that he has had specimens of Bruchus varicornis, raised from beans and Cow-peas, but the species under consideration differs from that, in having the feet, and the base and last joint of the antennæ, black, whilst in raricornis they are testaceous. Mr. Say describes B. obsoletus substantially as follows: "Length over one-tenth of inch; body blackish cinereous, with a slight tinge of brown; antennæ not deeply serrate; thorax much narrowed before, cinereous, on each side a slight impressed dorsal line; base with the edge almost angulated, central lobe almost truncate; scutel quadrate, whitish, longitudinally divided by a dusky line; elytra with the interstitial lines having a slight appearance of alternating whitish and dusky; on the middle of the third

interstitial line is a more obvious abbreviated whitish line; posterior thighs with a black spine, and two smaller ones." Say further remarks, that "the whitish or cinereous markings are not very striking; on the elytra they may sometimes be traced into two obsolete macular bands." I had perhaps four or five hundred specimens under my observation, and found that whilst many of them agreed substantially with Say's description, yet the larger number differed. In some specimens the anterior and intermediate feet were testaceous, and in very few was the scutel whitish. Very few seemed to be banded on the elytra. Say obtained his specimens in Indiana, from the seeds of a species of Astragalus, a variety of "MilkVetch," in August, and in company with Apion segnipes, one of the pear-shaped weevils. My specimens evolved in the months of June, July, August and September, from three varieties of the domestic bean (Phaseolus), commonly called "Cranberry," the "Agricultural," and the "Wrens-egg" beans, obtained from Mrs. P. C. Gibbons, Enterprise, Lanc. Co., Pa. The larva is a whitish footless grub, with a small brownish head, rather more than the tenth of an inch in length, and very similar in form to that which infests the pea and the chestnut. The presumption is that this insect deposits its eggs in the young bean while it is green and in the pod, in the same manuer that the pea-weevil does, with this very remarkable difference, that in the pea we usually find but one insect, and in many instances the germ remains intact, but in the bean we find from five to ten or more, in a single seed, and in the latter case they cannot possibly all germinate. I have not yet heard of this insect being found in any other locality in Lancaster Co. than the one above named. The tenant from whom Mrs. Gibbons received these infested beans has been engaged in the bean culture for twenty-five years on the same farm, and never noticed these weevils until within the last two or three years, and only last year did their destructive character become conspicuously apparent; for out of a small sack of seed-beans hung away, containing less than two quarts, she gathered nearly a teacup full of the weevils at planting time, in the carly part of June, and had all been infested as those were which she brought to me, she could have easily doubled the quantity. About five years ago Mrs. Gibbons received some seed-beans of the "Cranberry" variety, from Nantucket, Mass., and prior to that, she also received some from the Agricultural Department of the Patent Office, and with the one or the other of these,

the impression is, that the weevils must have been received the variety received through the latter being the "Agricultural." As the Department of Agriculture imports seeds of various kinds, and beans among the rest, an opinion prevails that this insect may have been imported with the beans; and whether they were brought from Washington City or from Nantucket to this county, this opinion may be well founded in either case, although we may not be able to account for Say's finding them so long ago in the seeds of the Astragalus, in Indiana. A known European bean-weevil is the Bruchus rufimanus, Sch.; but our insect, according to the following description from Stephens' Manual, is plainly not the rufimanus: "Oblong-ovate; black; thorax with a snowy spot before the scutellum; elytra spotted with white; base of the antennæ and the anterior legs testaceous-red; hinder thighs with an obsolete obtuse tooth." Some have also supposed it to be identical with Bruchus fabi, which is another foreign "beanweevil," but I have not access to a description of that insect, and I am therefore unable to say anything further in that relation. Specimens were also sent to Mr. Austin, a Coleopterist, of Cambridge, Mass., and he says the insect is quite common in that State, and that the Entomologists there have labeled it Bruchus fabi, but does not state upon what authority, or where a description may be found. Stevens, in his "Manual of British Coleoptera," describes twelve species of Bruchus, but fabi is not among them; so that, if it is a foreign importation, it is most likely brought hither from the continent of Europe.

Probably the most effective, if not the only remedy, to destroy this Bean-weevil, would be to subject the ripe beans, in Autumn, to a heat not too intense to destroy germination, yet great enough to destroy the larva, or the vitality of the egg of the insect. Curtis, in his "Farm Insects," says that the germinating powers of wheat is preserved at about 190 deg. of Fahrn., but that a lower heat, long continued, is more effective than a higher degree applied only for a short period. Beans would probably not bear so great a heat as grain, but, by experimenting, the safe mean may be attained. It is also recommended that immediately after gathering the beans, they should be thrown into boiling water, and left in for one minute, as the young larva may then, by this means, be killed. As an article of food, beans, infested with weevils, are known to be very unwholesome to man or beast.

[We can find no notice anywhere of any

European Bruchus fabi, Linn., and the author who is made to shoulder the name, would certertainly never have committed the atrocious blunder of writing fabi for fabæ. The nearest approach to it is Bruchus vicia, Oliv., of which we have no description; but all the other European species of Bruchus differ from this beanweevil, of which Mr. Rathvon has been kind enough to send us specimens, and we therefore consider it indigenous, and rightly referred by LeConte to obsoletus, Say. It differs essentially from the European granarius, which will be found figured in our "Answers" in this number, and also from flavimanus, Schönh., both of which species Curtis found preying on English Broad-beans.* Mr. Jas. Angus, of West Farms, N. Y., sent us in the forepart of November numerous specimens of this same weevil, with the account which appears in our "Jottings from Correspondents." There were no less than 14 in a single bean, and many were still soft and white, while a few were in the pupa state. Many of these specimens disagree with Say's description in the points already mentioned by Mr. Rathvon, but as some of them accord very well with the description, and as Say does not mention how many specimens he examined, those differences can be considered only as variations.-Ed.]

Farm Insects, pp. 363-4.

THE PLUM CURCULIO WILL DEPOSIT IN FRUIT WHICH OVERHANGS WATER.

BY DR. I. P. TRIMBLE, OF NEW JERSEY. Much has been written about planting fruittrees so as to lean over water, as a way of preventing the depredations of the Curculio. At the late meeting of the American Pomological Convention in Philadelphia, Dr. Underhill, the well-kown grape-grower at Croton Point, New York, asserted boldly, when the subject of Plums was under discussion, that the fruit on his trees, planted so as to lean over the water, was never stung by the Curculio.

It so happened that some members of the Convention who have investigated this matter, were not present when this strange assertion was made, or it would have been controverted on the spot.

I feel that in the fight against insects injurious to fruit, and especially against the Curculio, the first thing necessary to be done is to dispel the delusion which prevails so generally in the minds of the people, that there is some other way than killing them. I have no more faith in planting over water, than in scores of other

plans that have had their advocates. People have had plums after using them, just as they have had when nothing has been used; but all these plans have failed when fairly tested.

On the 25th of July, 1863, I was one of a party to visit the vineyards of Dr. Underhill, of Croton Point, on the Hudson River. That gentleman had solicited the appointment of a committee at a meeting of fruit-growers, to examine his mode of cultivating grapes. The visit was a most pleasant one.

While here, we visited the Doctor's Plum trees planted round an artificial pond. They stand at an angle of about 45 deg., and so close to the edge of the bank that the greater part of the branches are over the water, so that when the fruit comes to maturity on these trees, a boat will be necessary to gather the greater part of it. In a very careful examination of those trees having fruit on at this time, we found it badly punctured by the Curculio. On the plums high up on the trees, and especially on those branches leaning furthest over the water, it was impossible to see whether the crescent mark was there or not; but wherever near enough to be examined, we could see no difference between those plums hanging over the water and those over the land. They were just as badly marked by the punctures of the Curculio as were the plums on some trees at the neighboring station of Croton; just as badly stung as in Newark and other places I had visited that year on purpose to see the extent of the ravages of the Curculio. Gentlemen who have often seen these trees other years, have told me that they have always had a similar experience.

Dr. Underhill, like others, has had crops of plums, and these crops have probably bеeн ascribed to the circumstance that they grew over water; and he believes that the merit of the plan is attributable to the sagacity or instinct of the insect: That she must not deposit her eggs in fruit so situated that it will fall into water. To carry out this theory, it would be necessary for the Curculio to know that the plums in which she deposits her eggs will fall from that tree; that if they fall into the water, the grubs they contain will perish; that if they fall on land they will be safe. The question here arises-Has the Curculio such instincts, or such sagacity?

In this world of wonders in which we live, there is nothing so wonderful as the instincts of insects. The impulses that control their actions are strangely perfect. They are no more likely to go wrong than a machine. We do not know what instinct is. We cannot define it. No

matter how we put words together, they will give no adequate idea of what this blind impulse is. We cannot weigh, measure, see, or feel what is called gravity. But it is that something that keeps the universe in order; that something, in the ordering of the Almighty, that prevents one world from jostling another, and creation from falling into confusion.

Who can understand how the Cicada septendecim, after passing nearly seventeen years underground, should come to the surface in the evening of a certain day of the month, with almost exact regularity, generation after generation, for centuries? How should a certain kind of wasp know, that when she builds a cell of mud for the reception of her egg, she must put in a supply of insects for food for the young that will be born of that egg, and that at a certain future day she must break open that cell, and give her young a fresh supply? Who teaches the neuter bee-that nondescript that cannot be a parent--how to fabricate a cell for the young of another? Such curious instances of the instincts of insects could be multiplied till they would fill a volume, and all would be wonderful-equally beyond our understanding, but all consistent with their wants, and in accord with the rest of nature. Those who carefully observe these things will feel that they are in a world overruled by an Omnipresent Guide of all things. But the Superintending Guide that teaches the little Curculio to deposit her eggs in fruit where the future young will find food, would hardly give her an instinct to guard her against depositing that egg where fruits never grow except on trees planted contrary to nature.

We were told to-day that the tides were sometimes so low as partially to drain this pond, and it was then the Curculio punctured the fruit over where the water should be. The same special instinct that would teach her to avoid the water, should also admonish her to avoid the danger of the tide-water mud, the one being as fatal to the future grub as the other.

Planting fruit trees in this way will certainly diminish the number of Curculios; but as long as millions of young apples are permitted to lie undisturbed on the ground in the orchards in the neighborhood, to bring forth their vast armies for the next year, it will hardly be worth while to dig such ponds and plant trees round them in such an awkward position for the little good they would do. The embryo Curculio in the fruit that falls into the water will perish undoubtedly; but that water, or the fear of it, will not prevent the parent using that

fruit. The teachings of instinct are so exact and unvarying that one punctured plum over water explodes the theory; and if the theory is correct, a tub of water under a tree must protect a column of plums of the tub's circumference from the bottom to the top of that tree, and that certainly would be a curiosity with some of the light-colored, full-bearing varieties.

It is not at all likely that many will plant trees in this way; but as some have done so, I have been thus explicit on this point, to guard others against such an expensive and awkward way of trying to outgeneral the Curculio, since reason and observation teach us that it is of very little value.

In order to add weight to my own testimony, I copy the two following letters, which bear on this subject:

DR. I. P. TRIMBLE-Dear Sir: very well remember our visit at Croton Point, by request of Dr. Underhill, made to "The Fruit-Growers' Club" for a "committee' to examine his vineyards. Dr. U. especially called our attention to his success of growing plums over water, and of their not being attacked by the Curculio.

The account you published soon after was true in every particular. I remember your picking off plums and showing the crescent marks to all of the committee as well as to Dr. Underhill himself. I remember also distinctly the Doctor's remark, that although they were stung" the NIT NEVER HATCHED.''

I have visited the Doctor's plum trees since, and have seen the plums just as much punctured by the Curculio as in many other places where the trees did not lean over the water.

I know several others who planted trees to lean over the water, but the "Little Turk" did not favor them, that I could discover.

Truly, yours,

HAVERSTRAW, Dec. 22, '69.

R. W. HOLTON.

DR. I. P. TRIMBLE-Dear Sir: I have at last seen the person I spoke to you about; his name is John Howlett, a florist of this city. Some few years since, on the place where he then resided, was a pond of water, and in the centre of the pond a small island just large enough to grow a tree. On this island he planted a plum tree, and a row of plum trees all around the pond on its edge. Persons then, as now, asserted that in such positions they would be free from the depredations of the Curculio; but, as Mr. Howlett has just remarked to me. it had not the least effect; the fruit was stung and dropped quite as much as anywhere else. In fact, he got no fruit, and the plan was a total failure, though Mr. Howlett is an excellent practical gardener, and knew well how to care for his trees. The varieties were the leading kinds, such as Columbia, Smith's Orleans, Imperial Gage, Washington, etc. Respectfully, JNO. SAUL.

WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. 14, '69.

There is yet a vast and unexplored field for the Entomologist in the South. Our Southern brethren suffer from some of the most grievous insect foes, and their insect fauna is rich and diversified. We consequently take pleasure in announcing, that Mr. J. Parish Stelle, of Savannahı, Tenn., is at work in the field, and will continue to send us the "Southern Notes" which were commenced in the last number.

THE GOAT-WEED BUTTERFLY.

(Paphia glycerium, Doubleday.) [Fig. 81.]

b

Colors-(a) pale glaucous-green; (b) gray ish-green. There is an interesting and rare butterfly known to entomologists by the name of Paphia glycerium, which occurs in Missouri, Texas, and Illinois, and perhaps in other southwestern States. It is an interesting species on account of the dissimilarity of the sexes, and of the position it holds among the butterflies; and as its natural history has never hitherto been recorded, we will briefly transcribe it from notes and specimens which were kindly sent to us last September by Mr. J. R. Muhleman, of Woodburn, Ills., and from further facts communicated by Mr. L. K. Hayhurst, of Sedalia, Mo.

Dr. Morris, in his "Synopsis of the Lepidoptera of North America," places this butterfly with the Nymphalis family, of which the Disippus Butterfly (Nymphalis disippus, Godt., A. E., I, Fig. 133) is representative. The larva, however, has more the form and habits of that of the Tityrus Skipper (genus Goniloba), while singularly enough, the chrysalis resembles that of the Archippus Butterfly (genus Danais), which we figured on page 28 of our first volume.

The larva feeds on an annual (Croton capitatum) which is tolerably common in Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and westward, where it is known by the name of Goat-Weed. The plant has a peculiar wooly or hairy whitishgreen appearance, and in the month of September its leaves may frequently be found rolled

Colors-Coppery-red and brown.

is generally quite uniform, and is made in the following manner: Extending itself on the midvein, with its head towards the base of the leaf, the larva attaches a thread to the edge, at about one-fourth the distance from the base to the point. By a tension on this thread, it draws this edge partly toward the opposite one, and fastens it there, being assisted in the operation by the natural tendency of the leaf to curl its edges inwards. Fastening a thread here, it repeats the operation until the edges meet, and then it proceeds to firmly join them nearly to the apex, leaving a small aperture through which to pass the excrement. During hot days the larva remains concealed in the leaf, and towards evening comes out to feed, though sometimes it feeds upon its house, eating the leaf down half way from base to point. It then abandons it and rolls up a new one. In the breeding cage, when placed in a cool shady room, the larva seldom rolls up the leaves, but feeds at random over the plant, and when at rest simply remains extended on a leaf. From this we may infer that its object in rolling the leaves is to shield itself from the rays of the hot August and September sun; for the plant invariably grows on high naked prairies.

The young larva has a large head, larger than the third segment, which is the largest in the body. The head preserves its general form through the successive moults: it is light bluishgreen, thickly covered with papillæ of a dirty white color, and there are also a number of light orange papillæ of a larger size scattered among them. The skin of the caterpillar is green, but the general hue is a dirty white, owing to the entire surface being very closely studded with white or whitish papillæ with dark brown ones interspersed. These prominences are hemispherical, hard, opaque, shin

Colors-Light orange-brown and dark brown. Thus this larva has very much the same peculiar whitish glaucous-green color as the plant on which it feeds; and any one who has seen it upon the plant, cannot help concluding that it furnishes another instance of that mimickry in nature, where an insect, by wearing the exact colors of the plant upon which it feeds, is enabled the better to escape the sharp eyes of its natural enemies. When full-grown, which is in about three weeks after hatching, this worm* (Fig. 81, a) measures 1 inches, and although, as above described, the little elevations frequently disappear so that it looks quite smooth, yet sometimes they remain until the transformation to chrysalis takes place, as was the case with two which we bred.

Preparatory to transforming, it suspends itself by the hind-legs to a little tuft of silk which it had previously spun, and after resting for about twenty-four hours with its head curled up to near the tail, it works off the larval skin and becomes a chrysalis. This chrysalis (Fig. 81, b)

*From five full-grown specimens sent by Mr. Muhleman, we draw up the following description. Length 1 59 inches. Cylindrical. General appearance shagreened pale glaucousgreen, lighter above stigmata than elsewhere. Ground-color of body clear green Thickly covered with white papillæ or granulations, which are often interspersed with minute black or dark brown sunken dots. Head quite large (rather more than as large as the 3rd segment), nutant, subquadrate, bilobed, granulated like the body, but with the black sunken dots more numerous, and having besides, several larger granulations above, some four of which are generally black and the rest fulvous; a row of three very distinct eyespots at the base of palpi; the triangular V-shaped piece e.ongated and well defined by a fine black line, and divided longitudinally by a straight black line; palpi and labrum pale, the latter large and conspicuous; jaws black. Neck narrow, constricted, green, smooth and retractile within first segment. Segments 1-3 gradually larger and larger; 3 to last gradually smaller. Stigmata fulvous. Venter less thickly granulated than tergum.