194 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



LEUCOBREPHOS MIDDENDORFI. 



When I was the other day looking over some of the back numbers 

 of the Canadian Entomologist I came across an account of the taking 

 oi Leucodrephos Middendorfi, Men., by Mr. Hanham, of Winnipeg. I 

 beheve that this species is not generally to be found in collections. 

 Here I cannot call it uncommon. I see, on an average, quite half a 

 dozen specimens every spring, but the moth, from its habits, is most 

 difficult to capture. It appears with the first warm days of spring, 

 flying in the sunshine, low down amongst the stems of short scrub, 

 generally that in which the black cherry predominates, and over banks of 

 melting snow, the remains of drifts, a situation in which it is impossible 

 to use a net, and all one can do is to look at and long for it. When it 

 does venture out into the open its colour so coincides with the prevailing 

 grayness of its surroundings, and renders it so inconspicuous, that, with 

 the addition of its erratic flight, it is most difficult to net. I have only 

 taken two, and I should be sorry to say how many I have missed, and I 

 am not a "bad shot" on the whole. It is always turning up, too, at 

 unexpected and inconvenient times. This spring I walked about one 

 warm day, April 13th, till I was tired without getting a chance. Shortly 

 after I had given the moth up, hearing a commotion among my poultry, I 

 ran down to the stables with my gun. The hawk did not wait for me, 

 but I saw Middendorfi flying very quietly about a heap of manure 

 outside the door of one of my stables, where he could have been easily 

 netted had I but been prepared. My house, stables, etc., are surrounded 

 by scrub of various sorts. E. Firmstone Heath, Cartwright, Man. 



THE tobacco flea-beetle ( Epitrix parvuia) attacking tobacco 



IN BARN. 



In Dr. Howapd's excellent treatise on this beetle in the Yearbook of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture for 1S9S, pp. 123-5, ^^ 

 mention is made of the depredations of the insect in tobacco after it has 

 been gathered and hung in the tobacco barn. Last year, in Southern 

 Ohio, these beetles were found to have worked serious injury to tobacco 

 in the fields, especially to the lower leaves. In these fields the beetles 

 ate holes in the larger leaves, and when the leaf was not eaten through 

 the remaining tissue, when dry, would break up and disappear, thus 



