OF WASHINGTON. 19 
and in the second category with newly-acquired characters that in 
many cases systematists would consider of specific value. In 
short, he believes that certain individuals of a species, which has 
hitherto fed in obscurity on some wild plant, may take to feeding 
on a cultivated plant, and with the change of habit undergo in 
the course of a few years a sufficient change of character to be 
counted a new species. Increasing and spreading at the rapid 
rate which the prolificacy of most insects permits, the species 
finally becomes a pest, and necessarily attracts the attention of the 
farmer. The presumption is that it could not at any previous 
time have done similar injury without attracting similar attention ; 
in fact, that the habit is newly acquired. The author reasons that 
just as variation in plant life is often sudden, as in the ' sport,' 
and that new characters which may be perpetuated are thus 
created, so in insects there are comparatively sudden changes 
which, under favoring conditions, are perpetuated. In this way 
characters which most systematists w^ould consider as specific, 
originate within periods that are very brief compared to those 
which evolutionists believe to be necessary for the differentiation 
of specific forms among the higher animals." 
The cut-worms seem to have been unusually abundant during 
the spring of 1884, and one species, viz., Hadena devastatrix 
Brace, common to both Europe and America, attracted a great 
deal of attention and did much injury in Manitoba. 
Another insect which deserves particular mention is Nematus 
erichsonii. This was first ascertained to be the cause of the 
death of the Larch, or Hackmatack, in Maine and other parts of 
New England, during the year 1883, when I had the opportunity 
of witnessing, in company with Dr. Packard, the wide-spread 
devastation which it had caused. It was fully reported on by Dr. 
Packard in the annual report of the U. S. Entomologist for 1883, 
and has, during the past year, been observed doing similar injury 
to Larch in parts of Canada. 
The Clover Leaf-beetle (Phytonomus punctatus) also attracted 
unusual attention in 1884 and was said, at the meeting of the 
Entomological Club of the A. A. A. S., to have attacked beans. 
It has also been reported as quite abundant in parts of Ontario, 
and the beetle was found in countless numbers on the western 
shore of Lake Erie. Nothing further as to its life habits has 
