Clje Canaiiian Entomologist. 



VOL. XV. LONDON, ONT.. SEPTEMBER, 1883. No. 



THE TOWN AND THE FIELD— WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF 

 THE COCOONS OF PARASITES. 



BY FREDERICK CLARKSON, W.ALL STREET. NEW YORK CITY. 



Here I am again imprisoned within the walls of the town, after enjoy- 

 ing all the liberty of the field. How unphilosophical and dissatisfying to 

 a devotee at the shrine of Nature are the labors that attach to a locality 

 like this 1 One must turn over a new leaf occasionally. To balance the 

 ledger, even though it have golden results, is comparably but as the dust 

 of the balance. The City is stupid, hot, and odoriferous — empty, and yet 

 full. Wealth, with its polished exterior, has long since departed, and 

 *' poverty, a wrinkle of itself," remains. The intensity of the heat brings 

 the hidden life without, and the town is seemhigly the more full. What a 

 wretched place in midsummer is a great City : Ho : for the country, where 

 the God of Day is awaked by 



" The breezy call of incense breatliing morn, 



* « » * 



The cock's shrill clarion and the echoing horn." 

 And when he sinks to rest behind the everlasting hills, mark 



* . ' " How still the evening is, 

 As hushed on purpose to grace harmony." 



While from every thicket, from tree top, and from meadow — Nature's 

 most glorious cathedral — comes forth the vesper sacrifice of song. The 

 trees, like columns, reach up to the heavens, and canopied over all, the 

 gorgeous beauty of a passing summer day. These are some of the 

 inspirations that overtake a fellow who is ready to pack up and start. 



Meanwhile, as a pleasing abstraction from my surroundings, I write 

 for your journal a brief account of the cocoons of parasites. Much has 

 been written concerning the transformation and habits of the parasitic 

 Hymenoptera. Supposing it may be of interest. I give a few notes 

 relating to the cocoons, and such other methods as these parasites adopt 

 fur a covering while in the pupa condition. The circumstance that a por- 

 tion of my labor during the past season did not result as expected — many 



