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sylvania brood of 1851, of which I have specimens. Did you observe any dwarfs, a size
smaller than the common ones, and their song of a different tone? Such were noticed in
Pennsylvania, and in the Ohio brood of 1846.
I was sceptical with regard to these locusts being able to sting a person so as to cause
death. With its beak, it may accidentally [underlined] or perhaps purposely, puncture the skin, as some
other insects of this order do, if handled carelessly - hereby causing a wound more painful
than the sting of a bee, though they have no poisen to inject into the wound. But only in
a most weak, irritable constitution, do I imagine any danger could possibly result from
such a wound. Mr. Wight told me a case was published in the newspapers - a woman,
near Peoria he thought, who was thus killed, last June. But, on the other hand, a man
told me his boys repeatedly carried numbers of these locusts in their hats on their heads,
in sport with the noise they made. Certainly they would be apt to sting, under such treatment,
if they were able to.
A moth, coinciding perfectly with the description of the Angoumois moth, has destroyed
all the choice specimens of wheat, corked up in vials, in the Museum of the State Ag. Society.
This insect is common at the south; but we have never had it in the barns or granaries
of this vicinity.
My copy of the last edition of Harris's Treatise is loaned to a friend, and I
do not find the Baridius * trinotatus mentioned in the old edition of that work. But on referring
to Say's original description of this species, I find you named the weevil correctly. -
although these specimens are a trifle longer than the dimensions given by Say, I have
never seen this species before. Say found it in Pennsylvania & also in Indiana. Of seventeen
species of Baris in my collection, all are black, and not clothed in the least with the white
hairs which this possesses. I am very, very glad to get specimens of this species for my
collection. I have ticketed it, and put it up, in my cabinet, where, if you was here, you
could now see it with the Baris Furaxici from Germany, standing upon one side of it, and
[short line drawn above] * Or Baris - Dejean, Westwood & other late writers adopt
Germar's name for this
genus, in preference to Schonberr's longer one.