100 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



I have a male gall fly, reared from a similar gall, found this spring on the 

 cultivated red raspberry. I could not learn the variety of the raspberry. It 

 would be strange if it should prove an introduced variety — for the fly seems 

 to be identical with D. turgidus — the only difference I can see, besides the 

 sexual, is that the legs are darker. The antenna) are 14 jointed, the. third 

 joiot deeply incised. 



As I have several galls from this variety of raspberry, and shall probably 

 rear both male and female flies, I shall have an opportunity to compare the 

 females reared from the wild and cultivated raspberry, and shall then be able 

 to decide the question of their identity. 



My raspberry galls and also several species of oak galls in my collection, 

 are much pecked by birds. With the countless tribes of parasitic insects, 

 and the birds that prey upon them, it is a wonder the whole family of gall 

 makers does not become extinct. 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



Cocoon of the Cecropia. — In the last number of the Amer. Eut. & Bot. 

 mention is made of kernels of corn being found in the cocoon of the 

 Cecropia. Two similar instances have come under my notice. Twice I 

 have found beech-nuts in the inside of the cocoon at the small end, between 

 the caterpillar and the innermost layer of silk. The explanation offered by 

 Mr. LeBaron seems hardly admissible under these circumstances. On the 

 other hand, the fact of no beech trees being within an eighth of a mile 

 would indicate that they must have been placed there by the blue-jays or 

 some other bird as he supposes. — C S Minot, Boston, Mass. 



Food Plants of C. Promethea. — The following list is compiled from 

 actual observation and various authorities : — Barberry, birch, cherry, maple, 

 sassafras, azalea, oaks, sometimes arbor vitae and pine, apple, peach, plum, 

 syringa, silver bell, beech. — C. S. Minot, Boston, Mass. 



How to Preserve Spiders — Prom Thorell's Essays on European Spiders 

 (' Nova Acta regias Societatis Scientiarum Upsaliensis/ scr. III. vol. vii. fasc. 

 I, 1869), we extract the following observations, first suggested by M. West- 

 ring, a Sweedish naturalist, on the best mode of preserving spiders in Natural 

 History collections. The essential feature of the method is that the spider's 

 abdomen, and that part only of its body, is hardened by heat. The spider is 

 first killed, either by the vapour of ether or by heat, and is impaled by an 

 insect pin, which is passed through the right side of the ceph;do-thorax ; the 

 abdomen is then cut off close to the cephalo-thorax, and the cut surface dried 

 with blotting.paper. The head of another insect pin is cut off, and the blunt 



