16 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



tree for the pretty little homopteron, which forms galls on the leaf of the 

 hackberry {Psylla Celtidis-manuna, Riley), and which passes the winter 

 in a torpid state beneath the scales of the bark of the hackberry, the color 

 of which it closely resembles. In passing through the swamps, tufis of 

 moss are pulled from any exposed hummocks to be picked to pieces at 

 home when they have thawed out. Here will be found many treasures 

 which we have not found in any other way. Every cluster of leaves 

 adhering to a deciduous tree or swelling upon a stem has to be examined 

 for the cause, and if it prove to be the work of insects, must be put into 

 the bag for examination. The only apparatus necessary for these expe- 

 ditions is a bag slung over the shoulders and a stick with a hook on one 

 end and a spike on the other ; the bag acts as a large pocket, and saves 

 the inconvenience of unbottoning your coat, when, perhaps, the thermom- 

 eter is below zero. The hook on the stick is useful for pulling down 

 boughs or pulling yourself out of a hole ; the spike for prying off pieces 

 of bark or digging into old stumps. 



Objects of great interest, some of which can be belter collected, and 

 from which the insects can be more successfully bred when collected in 

 the winter time, are the various kinds of plant galls. These require little 

 trouble, all that is necessary is to put Ihem away in glass jars and keep 

 them closed. After a time the occupants begin to emerge, and to the 

 surprise of the uninitiated, although each kind is made by only one kind 

 of insect, from the galls will be produced perhaps half a dozen distinct 

 species. These are most of them parasites upon the gall-maker, or what 

 are known as inquilines or guest flies. The gall-maker produces the gall 

 upon the plants. In this gall some of these guest flies deposit their eggs, 

 and the young grubs feed upon the substance of the gall, or others again 

 live as parasites, either upon the grubs of the gall-makers or their guests. 

 Watching these as they emerge and making notes upon them, will be 

 found most entertaining at a time of the year when there is little active 

 life out of doors. A further zest is added to this department of study 

 from the fact that so little has been done in this line, that many of the 

 flies so bred will be new to science. 



Other places which may be visited in the winter, are groves of ever- 

 greens where much will be found to repay the collector. Amongst the 

 leaves of the pines are cases of larvae, and in the leaves themselves are the 

 burrows of the caterpillar of a tiny moth. Beneath the bark are numer- 

 ous scolytid bark-borers, and from the solid wood beneath may be ex- 



