220 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



cotton-plugged tubes under a hen that was kept in the laboratory at the 

 time for incubating eggs for embryological work. Of the first lot, all kept 

 in pocket, secured July 27th, two eggs hatched Aug. 4th, five between 

 Aug. 8-i3th, one Aug. i6th, the last giving twenty days, the longest period. 



Of the second lot secured, Aug. 3rd, six hatched between the 8th and 

 13th, four hatched Aug. 14th (three in box and one in tube), two Aug. 

 15th (one in box and one in tube), part not hatching, and the longest 

 period in this case being thirteen days. 



Assuming that those requiring the longest time had been deposited 

 but a short time before the experiment began, we should have from 

 fifteen to twenty days as the ordinary time required for the eggs to hatch 

 for this species. 



Mr. F. S. Earle presented some interesting notes upon the injurious 

 insects of the season in Southern Mississippi. Diabrotica 12-pitnctata 

 was a very abundant insect, and in addition to its well known food plants 

 it had been a serious pest to peach trees and cabbages. Leaves of the 

 latter, bitten by the insect, at once decayed from the point of injury. Cut- 

 worms were very destructive in gardens, and cucumber and melon vines 

 were much injured by a plant-louse. Potatoes had been much attacked 

 by a black flea-beetle, and the tomatoes by the boll-worm in the fruit, and 

 on the leaves by the sphinx larvae. 



Prof. Cook would like to hear the experience of those present as to a 

 practical remedy for the attack of the boll-worm upon the fruit of tomatoes. 



Prof Osborn said that Mr. Tracy had tried arsenical mixtures with 

 sojne success, and also had attracted the perfect insects to light. 



Miss M. E. Murtfeldt read the following paper : — 



SOME EXPERIENCES IN. REARING INSECTS. 



In rearing insects, as with many other enterprises in life, we climb the 

 ladder to success by the rounds of successive failures, having in many 

 cases to exhaust an almost infinite range of " how not to do it," before 

 arriving at its happy converse. 



Many and great are the disappointments of the entomologist ; but 

 does he succumb ? Never ! What single point in the biology of a 

 species has been relegated to the absolutely undiscoverable ? I do not 



