GRAPE INSECTS. Grape vines are attacked by numerous insects, on leaf and root, and also by borers. The most devastating and dreaded of late years is the grape Phylloxera ,which, having devastated the vineyards of France and other principal vine growing districts of Europe, are now giving vinegrowers in the United States, and especially in California, mnch tronble. This insect is especially troublesome in the lighter classes of mucky soil and in loams. In gritty soils, or soils containing much sand, the Phyl loxera is less dreaded. Dr. C. V. Riley, Chief of the Entomological Commission of the United States, has spent much valuable time in the care ful investigation of this enemy of the vine, both in France and in the United States. A synopsis of his investigations will he accepted as correct and valuable both by the scientific and the gen eral reader. Extracts are from the report of the Commissioner in the United States Geological Survey, containing valuable matter in relation to the Rocky Mountain Locust, and other insects. This destructive insect was first found in this country, and was described by Dr. Fitch, in 1856, under the name of Pemphigus vitifolice. Its proper name is Phylloxera vitifolice, though most authors speak of it as Phylloxera ea statrix. It exists in two forms, one raising irregular galls on the leaves, and the other forming small swellings on the rootlets. The root-form is both wingless generations in a year. This leaf-form produees. round, irregular galls, sometimes as large as a pea, but it does little damage compared with the root-form, which is much more abundant than the leaf-form, especially on native vines, in France, where its ravages have been so alarming that the French government has offered a re ward of 300,000 francs for a simple available rem edy. The leaf-form descends to the roots in the autumn, and there hybernates. The larva, of the • root-form are at first smooth and like the yonng of the leaf-form, but afterward molt and become warty, so as to become readily distinguishable from them. Prof. Riley and certain French ob servers have lately proved that the gall-producers, or the leaf-form, come from the impregnated or winter egg. The winged females begin to ap pear in July, bnt are most abundant in August and September. Like the wingless females, they reproduce by budding (parthenogenesis), the eggs. not being fertilized by males, no males being in, existence. Having issned from the ground while in the pnpa state, they rise in the air, and spread to new vineyards, where they lay two or three, sometimes eight eggs. These eggs are of two sizes; and, in about a fortnight, from the larger eggs are hatched wingless true sexual females, and from the smaller eggs wingless males. The. abdomen of the female, after impregnation, en larges someWhat, and she is soon delivered of a solitary egg; which differs from the ordinary I eggs of the parthenogenetic mother, only in becoming somewhat darker. Fig. 1, Type Galicecola; a, b; newly-hatched larva, ventral and dorsal view; c, egg; d, section of gall ; e, swelling of tendril; f, g, h, mother gall-louse, lateral, dorsal and ventral views; i, her antenna; j, her two-jointed tarsus. The figure on the side of each enlarged drawing. represents the natural size. This impregnate-d egg gives birth to a young louse, which becomes a virginal, egg bearing, wingless mother, grid thus recommences the cycle of the species' evolution. But one of the most important discoveries of Balbiani is that, during the latter part of the season, many of the wingless, hypogean mothers perform the very same function as the winged ones; i. e., they lay a few eggs, which are of two sizes, and which produce males and females, organized and constructed precisely as those born of the winged females, and, like them, producing the solitary impregnated errg. Thus, the interesting fact is established tat even the winged form is by no means essential to the perpetuation of the spe cies; but that, if all such winged individuals were destroyed as fast as they issue from the ground, the species could still go on multiplying in a vineyard from year to year. We have, there fore, the spectacle of an underground insect, pos sessing the power of continued existence, even when confined to its subterranean retreats. It spreads in the wingless state from vine to vine, and from vineyard to vineyard, when these are adjacent, either through passages in the ground itself or over the surface; at the same time it is able, in the winged condition to migrate to much and a few eggs. In spring the larvw molt their winter coat, and, after attaining matu rity, lay eggs. The eggs laid by the winged females are placed in the down of the leaf of the vine, but more commonly in the earth around the roots. Fig. 3, Type (root-form) Radicicola; o, b, pupa and imago of a probleinatic individual, or supposed male; c, d, its antenna and leg; e, vesicles found in the abdomen. As to remedies, one hundred and forty have already been pro posed in France, hut. none are infallible. The best general remedy is flooding the vineyards in autumn or winter. The best specific applica tion has heen found to be the hisulphide of carbon, two ounces to be placed in a hole near the root, the earth becoming impregnated, the more distant points. Fig. 2, Type (root-form) Rudirirulo; a, roots of Clinton vibe, showing the relation of swellings to leaf-galls, and power of resisting decomposition ; b. larva, as it appears when hybernating; r, d , antenna and and leg of the same ; e. f, g, forms of more mature lice ; h, granulatihs of skin ; tubercle; j, transverse folds at border of joints; 1c, simple eyes. The solitary egg above referred to is the winter egg. As autumn advances, the winged individuals become more and more scarce, and only eggs, newly-hatched larvw, and a few wingless, egg bearing mothers are seen. The latter are said to die during the winter, and consequently the spe cies in winter is represented by the larvce insects are killed. Dr. Riley has strongly urged the use of those American vines which resist the' attacks of the Phylloxera, as one of the best measures to prevent the attacks of this dreaded pe,st. Dr. Riley supplements the natural his tory of this insect, showing the means he employed to carry out the rearing of the perfect insect, saying : The results of these endeavors to supply the winged mothers as nearly as possible with the natural conditions have been satisfactory, and they prove that, as was surmised, the eggs are laid in crevices of the ground around the base of the vine, but still more often on the leaves, attached generally by one end amid the natural pubescence, or rather down, of the under surface; and while heretofore all efforts to arti ficially hatch the progeny from these eggs have, for the most part, failed, I have this year suc ceeded in hatching them without difficulty. (The illustrations given will show the various stages of the insect, so as to make the whole clear.—ED.) I have also succeeded in getting both sexes of the American Oak Phylloxera, and in thus completing the natural history of both species. Though this true sexual form of vasta trix, from the winged and agamous female, has never before been carefully observed and described, it was nevertheless anticipated by Balbiani in his studies of the European Oak Phylloxera (Phyllo.rera guercus• Fonsc.) and by myself iu my studies of the American Oak species (P. Balbiani had also obtained what is evidently the same from eggs deposited by wingless, hypogean mothers late in the sea son, and after the winged mothers cease to fly. The winged females carry in the abdomen from three to five and sometimes as many as eight eggs. These eggs are of two sizes—the smaller, which produce males, about three-fourths the size 'of the larger, which produce females. As the whole organization of these arial mothers— vvith the stout proboscis and ample wings—indi cates freedom and nourishment are needed to bring the eggs to perfection and cause their proper oviposition. In confinement in small vessels, where these requisites are not easily furnished, the eggs are generally voided, with the death of the parent, ou the sides of such vessels; and those freely laid are with the greatest difficulty brought to the hatching point. Only in two instances did I succeed in doing this last year. These failures in the past find their explanation not so much in the difficulty ot' supplying the nat ural conditions, as in lack of experience as to what these condi tions were. The ac companying illustra tion, Fig. 4, shows Sexed Phylloxerae: a, female vastatrix, ven tral view, showing egg through transparent skin ; b, do., dorsal view; c, greatly en larged tarsus; d, anal joints shrunken as they appear after oviposi tion ; e, male earyce eaulie, dorsal view— the dots in circle in dicating natural size. Whether owing to the want of down on the Clinton leaf, or that the minuteness of the eggs makes it about as difficult to find them on a square four feet of earth sur-. face as the proverbial needle in a haystack, the eggs found on the vine iu the aforementioned muslin enclosure were very few compared to the number of winged insects which must have come out of the ground. It was also next to impos sible to find, and quite impossible to follow, the sexed individuals after hatching. In the pre pared jars, where the tomentose leaves of Lahrusca were kept, I obtained more satisfac tory results; for, while a few eggs were laid on the surface of the ground, especially in the space between the earth and the glass, and a few others on the upper side of the leaves, by far the larger numher were attached to the under surface, gen erally by one end and thrust between the natural down of the leaf—evidently showing that this is the natural nidus chosen. The winged mothers
die soon after ovipositing and their shrivelled and decaying bodies adhere to the leaf-down. By taking a leaf hearing eggs that are eight or nine days old and enclosing it in a smaller, tightly corked tube, the sexed individuals hatch freely, and are easily watched. This hatching takes place on about the tenth day after deposition, with our late September temperature. The egg perceptibly enlarges during this time, a fact that might he explained hy endosmosis of the leaf juices were it not known that the same fact holds true of many soft insect eggs that are not attached to succulent leaves or other living vegetation. The red eyes are seen through the delicate egg shell early in the development of the embryo, and just before hatching the joints of the body are perceptible. The egg-shell is so delicate that in the process of hatching it is usually pushed back in folds, and is left as a little wrinkled, whitish mass; occasionally, however, it more nearly retains its original form. The sexed indi viduata are at once distinguished from all the other forms which this interesting species assumes by the obsolete mouth-parts, the sexual organs and the more highly developed nervous system; otherwise, in size, in smoothness and in obso leteness of the basal joint of tarsus, they most closely represent the newly hatched larva. The next cut, Fig. 5, Grape Phylloxera; a shows a healthy root ; b, one in which the lice are work ing, representing the knots and swellings caused by their punctures; c, a root that has been deserted by them, and where the rootlets have commenced to decay; d, d, d, shows how the lice are found on the larger roots; e, female pupa, dorsal view; f, the same, ventral view; g, winged female, dorsal view ; lb, same ventral view; i, magnified antenna of winged insect; j. side view of the wingless female laying eggs on roots; k, shows how the punctures of the lice cause the larger roots to decay. Where this egg is natur ally laid I have not yet ascertained, but in all probability it is carried into or near the ground by the impregnated parent. The young hatch ing from it is the normal agamous female: for, though I have not yet hatched this impregnated egg of vastatrix, nave succeeded in doing so with that of Rileyi, and Balbiarti long since did so with that of quercus. I am led to think that, once impregnated, the female carries her egg into the ground, because in 1873 I found females whose abdomens, instead of being, filled with numerous small eggs, were distended with a single large one; and, though I was puzzled to min. long and half that in diameter, of the nor mal, agamic and apterous female, as it is found upon the roots ; 2d, the similar, but somewhat smaller egg of the gall-inhabiting mother; 3rd, the 9 egg from the winged mother, rather more ellipsoidal, and 0.50 mm. long when mature; 4th, the egg from same, one-fourth less in length and rather stouter; 5th, the impregnated egg. just described, 0.32 ram. long and still more ellipsoidal. We have also the sing-ular spectacle of an egg from the winged mother increasing from 0.34 mm. (its size when laid) to 0.40 mm. (its size just before hatching) giv ing birth to a perfect insect 0.40 mm. long and this in turn without any nourishment laying an interpret the fact at the time, I have no doubt now that I then had under my eyes the true, impregnated female here described, and that I overlooked the obsolete mouth. The habits of these sexed individuals, as nave been able to -observe in both the Grape and American Oak species, are similar to those recorded by Balbiani -of the European Oak species. The male is quite ardent, more active than the female and some what longer-lived. The complete natural his tory of the Grape Phylloxera may now be con sidered established. A. full biological view of the species exhibits to us no less than five differ ent kinds of eggs: 1st, the regular ovoid egg, 0.25 egg 0.32 mm. long. A being is thus born, and, without food whatsoever, lays an egg very nearly as large as that from which she came. Frorn observations here recorded I would draw the following conclusions: 1. We can no longer really entertain the hope of any practical good from the knowledge of the nidus chosen by the vvinged mothers, as the destruction either of these or of their eggs—scattered as they are on the leaves all through a vineyard—is out of the ques tion. The objects are too small to be practically searched for, and it is virtually impossible to prevent the spread of the disease in this stage. We might almost as well try to prevent mildew by the destruction of the invisible floating spores that must at times pervade the atmosphere of a vineyard. The hope entertained by Lichtenstein that the winged mothers would congregate and be attracted to some particular plant must, it is thought, be abandoned. 2. The only preference shown in this respect would seem to be for those leaves that are most downy or tomentose; and from this view of the case we get another prob able reason why the varieties of Labrusca which are characterized by an abundant downiness on the under surface of the leaves suffer most from the insect. 3. Having already had the young from the impregnated egg of Rileyi hatch in about a fortnight after it was laid; having shown in previous writings that this species winters in the larva state, and not in the impregnated egg as does the European quercus; remembering, fur ther, that vastatrix resemhles Rileyi in wintering as larva, it is safe to conclude that the impreg nated egg of vastatrix will hatch the same season that it is laid, and that we can not apply to it the term winter egg which Balbiani applies to the impregnated egg or quercus. It is not unlikely that, since a few of the winged females issue as late even as the latter part of October, some few also of the latter produced impregnated eggs may pass the winter unhatched; if so, they may be considered exceptions to the rule. In the same way, a few of the more common eggs from the agamous male may be exceptionally found on the roots in winter, though as a rule only the hybernal larva is found. Concluding, Dr. Riley states that a succeeding year's study of both Vastatrix and Rileyi confirm him in the opinion, maintained in a previous report, that the term pupa, as applied to the sexed eggs by Lichtenstein, is quite unwar ranted, and that the egg-covering, thin and plastic though it is, can in no sense be likened to a cocoon, and still less to a silken cover. The fact of its shrivelling up makes it none the less an egg shell, for this shrivelling process occurs in all eggs with very delicate and plastic covering, and may, indeed, be witnessed in the gall-inhabiting form of vastatrix, though no one has thought of ques tioning the ovarian nature of the eggs found in those galls. The foregoing, given at consider able length, will be found important to vine yardists. Another destructive insect, infesting the forewings white and those on the hindwings yellowish, (see illustration given below, Fig. 7), a, caterpillar, b, side view magnified, c, moth. The caterpillar is banded with whitish-blue with black lines, and on the middle of each square is, a broad, orange-yellow band dotted with black. Hand picking is the remedy. Of the four next beetles figured, the Editor of the Report on the Rocky Mountain Locust, says of the grape-vine colaspis, that it is one of the worst of the forty or fifty different insect enemies of the grape-vine. The beetle ranges from New York to Illinois and Missouri. It is cream-colored and black, with long club-shaped feelers nearly a fifth of an inch long; the head and prothorax are reddish-yellow, while the wing-covers are black. Hand pick ing is the best remedy. The cut, Fig. 8, shows at 1, beetle; 2, natural size; a, larva, b, end of body enlarged, the hair line showing the natural size. The larva has been found by Prof. Riley to feed on the roots of the strawberry. It trans forms in the ground. Of the Vine-Leaf Hopper, he says it abounds East, when the grapes are the grape, is the Red Shouldered Synoxylon (Sy noxylon basilar Fig.6—a, larva; b, pupa; c, per fect insect or beetle; a blight insect boring under the bark, as well as in the heart of the stems. Its depredations are not confined to the grape, for it also attacks the apple, and the hickory, boring straight to the heart of the tree. Infested twigs should always be burned. The Grape Forester may also be mentioned here as eating the leaves of the grape. The miller has a black hue with two large spots on each of its wings. Those on ripening, is pale yellow, with two broad red bands and a third dusky one at the apex. It is a little over a tenth of an inch long. It swarms on the leaves iu August, puncturing them with its tiny beak, and drawing out the sap until the leaves turn yellow and become dry and stiff The young appear in June, and the leaves are thus depleted for a period of nearly three months. They wither, and hence the plant becomes enfeebled, little new wood is formed, and the canes do not ripen well, and the fruit is stunted and easily mildews, while in a few years the vine become .exhausted and barren. The leaf hoppers hybernate, and lay their eggs in the spring As a remedy, wash the vines with soap suds in June, and, if possible, fumigate the leaves with tobacco. These are among the worst of the insects attacking the grape. Another insect, rather rare, but destructive, is the Broad-necked Priornus This is, however, a general feeder working in a number of trees, and will he treated of under its proper name.