250 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Pines Exempt from the Attack of D. frontalis. — I have not, as yet, 

 been able to find a single living ty.'AXi\\AtoS. Dendrodonus frontalis in the 

 State since the fall of 1892. Thus, no opportunity has been offered to 

 continue the experiment with the imported Clems formicarius as an 

 enemy of this species, as was intended. The sudden and apparently utter 

 disappearance of D. frontalis over an area of some ten to fifteen thou- 

 sand square miles, where it had occurred in such enormous and destruc- 

 tive numbers, is yet somewhat of a puzzle to me. What little evidence I 

 have been able to obtain, however, points to a contagious disease, pro- 

 ducing a widespread epidemic, as the only logical explanation of the 

 phenomenon. 



Last spring I received some pine bark from North Carolina, which 

 had been taken from one of many pine trees that had recently died. 

 This bark bore the unmistakable evidence of the work of D. frontalis, 

 and an example of the species was found in the bark. The fact that the 

 species is living in that section of the great pine belt would indicate that 

 it is only a matter of time when another invasion may be expected. 



Diseases of Forest Tree Insects. — On Dec. 25th, 1895, while cutting 

 in a decaying beech log in search of the larva and imago of a large 

 Bupresiid, Chalcophora campestris (?), I found that large numbers of the 

 larvae and pupae had been attacked and were completely enveloped by a 

 white, fluffy fungous growth, resembling closely the description of Prof 

 Lugger's Isaria tomicii. It was also found that this fungus had attacked 

 and killed other insects that infested the log, including larvae, pupae and 

 adults of the common Tenebrionid, Nyctobates pennsylvanica, and imagoes 

 of the Scolytid, Platypus compositns. Apparently the same fungus was 

 also found in the entrance to the brood-galleries of Xyleborus celsns, in 

 hickory, which were filled with a brood of living beetles. The fungus 

 had apparently crowded back the guarding female into the secondary 

 galleries, where it, with other examples of the brood, appeared to be hope- 

 lessly imprisoned, since they did not appear to be able to emerge through 

 the leather-like substance of the fungus. 



PTEROPHORiDyE. — Prof C. H. Fernald, of the Agricultural College, 

 Amherst, Mass., who recently published a valuable monograph upon the 

 Crambidae of North America, is now engaged upon a similar work on the 

 Pterophoridpe, and would like to obtain materials from all quarters. He 

 prefers that specimens should be sent to him pinned and spread, not in 

 papers. 



