22 THE CANADIAN KNTOMOLOGIST. 



leaves and debris, or in the loose surface soil at the base of the trees or in 

 the vicinity. When collecting some of these cocoons on July 19th, I 

 found that very large numbers had already been collected and the larvae 

 taken out by some small animals, probably mice and moles, as there was a 

 perfect network of small burrows under the old leaves and grass. The 

 empty cocoons were collected into little heaps, and a very large handful 

 could often be gathered at a single grasp. 



Having been kept in a moderately warm room, some of the imagines 

 emerged from the cocoons on December 22nd, and continued to do 

 so almost daily until January 17th of this year. The larvae, cocoons 

 and imagines agreed exactly with the figures of Nejnatus Erichsonii 

 (Hortig), in Prof Riley's report to the U. S. Department of Agriculture 

 for 1883. 



I had noticed these larvae on the larch trees in former years, but 

 they were not so generally abundant, and I had not the opportunity 

 to study them. 



My father has told me that about thirty years ago the tamarack 

 woods were entirely defoliated, and looked as though scorched by 

 fire, and he thinks that the saw-fly larvae were probably the cause. It 

 was more noticeable at that time, as there were large tracts of land 

 covered with tamarack forest that have now entirely disappeared. 



Another insect has proved to be peculiarly injurious this season to 

 young growing beans. It is a small dipterous fly, and specimens sent 

 to Prof. Riley were determined by him as Anthojiiyia angusti/ro?is, 

 Mirgen ( = A. colopteni, Riley), the larvae of which have been hitherto 

 known to feed upon the eggs of Caloptenus. During the past 

 summer the larvae attacked a field of golden wax beans that were 

 planted about June 15th, and on that part of the field that was most 

 seriously injured, at least nine-tenths of the crop was destroyed. 

 About ten days after planting, as very few of the beans had grown to 

 the surface of the ground, an examination was made for the cause, 

 and it was found that nearly every bean was infected by from i or 2 

 to 20 or 25 small, long, white maggots. Some of the beans attacked 

 had hardly sprouted, while most of them had grown from one to two 

 inches, but being planted deeply, they had scarcely reached the surface. 

 Both the stems and seed-leaves were attacked. These larvae were first 

 noticed on June 25th; by the 28th many of them had pupated, and 

 hardly a maggot could be found after July 2nd. The flies emerged 



