244 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



time to time during the year, and the condition of the wood and bark is 

 noted, together with the kinds of insects occurring in the same, the char- 

 acter of injury, etc. 



It was found necessary to have some convenient method of ascer- 

 taining what insects bred in the wood and bark of trees cut in each 

 month, Th-ijrefore an insectary was planned and built with this end in 

 view. At present it consists of a room 12 feet long by 9 feet wide and 9 

 feet high. It is divided into four compartments or rooms, each 3 feet 

 wide and' 9 feet long, with 12 breeding cages or boxes, i8x 12x18 

 inches, in one end. A door opens into each room, and a window 12x12 

 inches above the suite of breeding boxes, near the ceiling, gives the 

 necessary light. The breeding boxes are arranged like drawers, in a case 

 with doors in each opening into the room, and with a 2-inch round win- 

 dow in the back, opposite to a correspondingly small window in the 

 wall. The object of the small windows in the boxes and in the ends of 

 the rooms is to attract the insects to the light when they emerge so that 

 they can be easily collected. Each room is devoted to one kind of wood, —  

 as pine, oak, and hickory. Pieces of the trunk and branches of an in- 

 fested tree are placed on shelves on one side of the room, and as the 

 insects emerge they fly to the window, where they are collected in a 

 cyanide bottle provided for each room. A shelf is attached just beneath 

 each window and is covered with white paper, so that if any of the smaller 

 insects die, they fall on it and are easily found. 



The twelve boxes in the end of each room are used to breed insects 

 from the wood and bark of trees cut in each month of the year. This 

 arrangement of rooms and boxes is proving quite successful. Hundreds 

 of specimens have been obtained, representing many species which would 

 have been difficult to obtain in any other way, and in addition, many 

 important facts have been learned with reference to the food habits of 

 certain species. 



One of the most interesting results that has been obtained is from 

 hickory and oak, cut in the winter and summer of 1894. That cut in the 

 winter months is being converted into a powder by Lyctus striatus, while 

 that cut during the summer months is but slightly damaged. 



I have also found from the cuttings in the forest that the wood of 

 certain species of trees felled during the winter months, as well as of those 

 felled in the late fall and early spring, are seriously damaged by wood- 

 boring insects, while those cut in July and August are either entirely 

 exempt, or but slightly damaged, 



