THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 137 



the native hazel, gooseberry and currant as above mentioned, all affected by a 

 mite which has every appearance of being the same, lends colour to the proba- 

 bility that the three forms found in England are not good species and would be 

 transferable from one host to another. That this is what happens at Agassiz 

 I haxe \cry little doubt. 



In 1900 the late George Massee conducted some experiments at Wisley 

 Gardens. England, with a view to testing the possibility of transferring the mite 

 on the hazel, (C. avellana) to the cultivated black currant. The plan of his 

 experiment, with which the writer had the pleasure of assisting, was to plant 

 alternate bushes of infected hazels and clean black currants at a distance of 

 about four feet and to observe if by ordinary means the mite on the hazel would 

 attach itself to the currants. 



Although the result of the experiment pointed to the immunity of the cur- 

 rant from the hazel mite the test was not sufficiently long or thorough for positive 

 proof on that point. 



That the hazel C. californica is the original and chief host of this pest in 

 British Columbia there is little doubt. It is the exception and not the rule to 

 find a bush of Ribes affected. On the South-eastern portion of Vancouver 

 Island, where the hazel is quite scarce, I have never found the mite on either 

 this shrub or on any Ribes sp. (with the exception of the previously-mentioned 

 instance where the European mite had escaped), while at Agassiz the hazel is 

 ^•ery common and is everywhere badly affected, in some cases 75% of the buds 

 being arrested in development by the work of the mite. 



Some European hazels on the Dominion Experimental Farm at Agassiz 

 were also found to be affected by bud mites; whether imported with them on 

 recent migrants from the neighboring woods it would be difficult to say. 



The fact that this pest, which apparently lives on both hazel and currant, 

 and is strongly entrenched in the Lower Eraser \"alley, will have a retarding 

 influence on the planting of these districts with small fruits, especially black 

 currants; and it would certainly be folly to let any large acreage be planted until 

 more investigational work has been done on this pest, and the fact that it will 

 not affect the cultivated varieties of black currant and gooseberry has been 

 proven beyond all doubt. 



NEW RHOPALOCERA FROM THE FAR EAST. 



BY WARO NAKAHARA, A.M., PH.D. 

 ^ Elmhurst, Long Island, N.Y. 



Leptidia inornata, n. sp. 



Related to L. amnrensis Men.; both wings broader; upperside of fore wing 

 devoid of the apical dark patch. 



Male. — Wings broad, much broader than in L. amnrensis: rounded at the 

 apex. Upperside soft silky white, without markings except a dark suffusion 

 along the anterior margin toward the base of the fore wing. Underside similar 

 to the upperside in fore wing; hind wing with two nebular groups of dark atoms 

 in the limbal area; the larger one extending from the 2nd to the 4th interspace, 

 paralleling the hind margin, and the other, smaller one from the anterior angle 

 obliquely toward the middle of the 5th interspace. 



June, 1920 



