266 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



of the hulls of the seeds of the strawberry (see plate 6), thus showing that 

 the pest must have possessed a biting mouth and a fondness for seeds, 

 and while this placed the Lygjeid beyond the boundaries of con- 

 sideration, nothing else was found to point to any other insect, although 

 some observations made more than twenty years before led me to 

 suspect some Carabid as the true author of the trouble. The fruit itself 

 was comparatively little eaten, the surface, especially in case of that 

 nearly or quite ripe, being badly torn and lacerated ; not much gouged 

 out, as would likely follow the attacks of a fruit-eating insect or myriapod. 

 Despite the fact that very few Carabids had been found about the 

 affected strawberries, I strongly suspected that, sooner or later, we should 

 find one or more of these doing the injury. 



On June 6, 1899, there came complaints of the same sort of injury 

 from Mr. William Hoyle, Radnor, Ohio, a new locality, Mr. H. being 

 very confident that the Lygseid caused the trouble, as he had found many 

 of these on the berries. More urgent matters claimed my attention, and 

 no investigation of this outbreak was attempted, and no other attacks 

 were reported to me during the year. 



June 6, 1900, I received a note from Mr. Fisher to the effect that 

 the same trouble that had occurred in 1898 had again commenced, and a 

 few days later a telegram reported continued serious effects. On June 12 

 I visited the locality, personally, and found fully half of the fruit being 

 rendered worthless, the injury being done during the time between 

 evening and late morning, say between 8 p. m. and 7.30 a. m. The 

 injured fruit had been but little eaten, but nearly every seed was missing 

 and the hulls scattered underneath. I have noticed this, rarely, for 

 years, but as it never appeared to amount to more than a trivial injury, I 

 had done no more than to wonder at the nature of the author thereof. 

 The Myodocha were present, but it was clear that the work was not of 

 their doing. Searching about a cluster of badly-injured berries, ore 

 Harpalus caliginosus was found underneath a clod, but, as the berries 

 had evidently been attacked several hours before, this proved nothing. 

 Further examinations resulted very much the same, until I found a 

 cluster of ripe berries, the surface of which were raw and bleeding from a 

 seemingly fresh attack, and, as usual, one of the Harpalus caliginosus 

 was found hiding in a small crevice in the ground near by. After two or 

 three such had been captured, a microscopic examination of the con- 

 tents of the alimentary canal revealed the broken and crushed fragments 



