THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 83 



embedded in a coating something like that on the Tent Caterpillar eggs, 

 but with the neck of each protruding through the covering. Several kinds 

 of scale insects will probably turn up during our ramble ; on apple and 

 many other trees the Oyster-shell scale, Putnam scale, the Scurfy Bark 

 scale, and some others of the armoured scales, will occur, also the young 

 ;0f some of the Lecaniums, or Soft Scales. These latter differ very much 

 ia habit from the armoured scales in that, instead of passing the winter as 

 eggs beneath the old scales, the young insects hatch in summer and, as 

 winter approaches, leave the foliage and crawl on to the young twigs, where 

 they hibernate as minute flat brown scales resembling tiny turtles. When 

 vegetation revives again in spring these small insects crawl about until 

 they have found a suitable place, when they attach themselves to the 

 bark and never again move. 



A discoloured slight swelling in the side of a raspberry cane will give 

 us a row of the eggs of the Snowy Tree-cricket, and if we split the same 

 cane right down to the bottom we may find a fat caterpillar of the Rasp- 

 berry Root Borer (Bembecia marginata). Dead stems, seed pods and 

 the flowering stems of perennials, should always be examined. By spHtting 

 dead stems, many small beetles, or the larvae and pupge of minute moths, 

 will be disclosed. In the seed pods of mullein we may look for the 

 caterpillars of Penthina hebesana, whilst almost every head of the burdock 

 will give us ample supplies of the short, fat larvae of the tiny imported 

 moths, Metzneria lapella. 



On the edges of swamps we may see a patch of buUrushes or cat- 

 tails. In the seedheads we shall find the caterpillars of a tiny moth, and, 

 by cutting open the stems, the large, olive-brown caterpillars of Sphida 

 obliquata will be brought to light, as well also, perhaps, as some strange 

 sculptured weevils of the genus Sphenophorus and the maggots of several, 

 kinds of flies. Growing near these a matted web just coming through the 

 snow may give us the winter tent of a colony of the orange and black cater- 

 pillars of the Baltimore Fritillary (Melitcea phaeton). In the woods, tufts 

 of moss or lichens growing on the sides of trees will well repay the 

 trouble of detaching them and shaking them over a sheet of paper. The 

 same may be done with moss from near the roots of trees, when an incred- 

 ible number of small insects of nearly every order will be sifted out. 

 Where swamp moss can be obtained, as along the edges of a running 

 stream, this should be raked out and tied in small bags tor taking home 

 and examining at leisure. A convenient way is to tie up two or four 

 small bags and hang them in a tree until frozen. They can then be slung 



