THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 13' 



glass projects about a quarter of an inch above the frame, which is con- 

 venient for drawing it out by. The inside is then lined out with paper 

 such as newspapers are printed on, a stout picture-ring is screwed into the 

 side at the top, and the box hangs like a picture against the wall. 



I find that the Basswood, with a little care in putting in the pins, 

 answers as well as cork ; but if a softer substance is thought desirable, 

 take a Basswood log and cut it into slices, about three-eighths of an inch 

 thick, across the grain, making the boxes a quarter of an inch deeper and 

 lining the backs with this, previously smoothed with a sharp plane. This 

 is an excellent substitute ; in fact I prefer it to cork, as it is free from the 

 hard nodules which often have caused me to bend a pin and spoil a 

 valuable specimen, and it never corrodes the wire, which the acid 

 developed in the cork often does. 



Some of my younger friends have adopted this plan, and look with 

 pardonable pride -m the adornment of their walls by these cases, which 

 they have coloured and varnished, and which they declare are far superior 

 to any pictures they could afford to buy. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Pvrrharctia (Spilosoma) Isabella. — Under this heading, in the 

 April, '73 No. of the Canadian Entomologist, we have from the pen of 

 Mr. Wm. Saunders, a brief history of the habits and metamorphoses of 

 this insect. My experience with the larvae of this moth has been that 

 some individuals at least are somewhat particular as to their diet, many 

 rejecting clover and preferring the early shoots of June grass, others per- 

 sistently refusing the latter and greedily devouring the former, others still 

 ignoring both in their anxiety for some possibly more palatable article of 

 food. Omnivorous they certainly are, but sometimes decidedly finical. 

 Mr. S. states that they are "probably subject to the attacks of ichneu- 

 mons." I have this spring bred from cocoons of Pyrrharctia Isabella two 

 parasites, which have been kindly identified for me by Prof. Riley as 

 Ichneumon signatipes, Cresson ; and Trogus obsidian a tor, Brulle. 



