54 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGlSl". 



but tapering much more gradually at the exterior end. Although 

 normally round, the sides are generally found to be more or less flattened 

 by pressure from the tissues of the wood and bark of the tree. So 

 numerous were these eggs on some trees that a careful estimate shows 

 that there must be at least from six to eight hundred eggs in a section of 

 the branches not more than an inch long and half an inch in diameter. 



I have not been able to find a remedy, and perhaps the best is to de- 

 stroy as many of the egg-bearing limbs as possible. It is to be hoped 

 that the little parasitic flies will increase, and this seems probable. On 

 Sept. 17th I found 5 or 6 tree -hoppers ovipositing on a piece of branch 

 about 4 inches long, and on the same section were 12 or 15 of the 

 parasitic flies. 



THE COLIAS CONTROVERSY. 



BY R. H. STRETCH, SAN FRANCISCO. 



It is to me a most distasteful task to take part publicly in the 

 " Cohas " controversy between Mr. Edwards and Dr. Hagen, as I was an 

 invited guest of Dr. Hagen on the trip to Washington Territory, where 

 the events took place which have given rise to the discussion ; but in the 

 interest of science, which seeks nothing but the truth, it seems as though 

 the time had come when I ought to state in a concise manner what I 

 know of the whole matter. I have been cut off from all my books for the 

 last five months, while travelling from place to place, or this letter would 

 have been written earlier. I did not know till quite recently the phase to 

 which the controversy had arrived. Probably the best thing I can do is 

 to state the manner in which our party was organized, and the manner in 

 which our collecting was done. 



The party consisted of Dr. Hagen, and his assistant, Samuel Hen- 

 shaw. In San Francisco I was invited to join it, and did so. 



Mr. Henshaw was a skillful coleopterist, a department of entomology 

 of which I knew but little, so by mutual agreement I became practically 

 the lepidopterist of the party, as he was the coleopterist, and we both 

 collected such other groups of insects as came in our way. Purely sci- 

 entific work, or mere collecting, was discouraged, as the party was an 

 " Economic Entomological Expedition," a fact repeated over and over 

 again to the wonder-stricken pioneers of the wilderness. 



