THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 15 



The bottom layer of eggs will usually number 100 or more, and their interstices 

 are well filled with this same gelatinous substance, which adheres so strongly to 

 the eggs that when the nest is torn open they cannot be separated without 

 bringing away portions of this material firmly attached. Another irregular 

 layer of eggs is placed on this, then a third, and sometimes a fourth, before the 

 total uumber is exhausted, and through the whole of these the gelatinous matter 

 is so placed as to secure every egg, not by being imbedded in a solid mass, but 

 surrounded by the material worked into a spongy or frothy state. Possibly 

 this may be to economize the amount used. Over all is a heavy layer of the 

 same with a nearly smooth greyish white surface, the wdiole number of eggs 

 being placed so as to present a convex surface to the weather, which effectually 

 prevents the lodgement of any water on it. 



Within this enclosure are deposited from 375 to 500 eggs. We give these 

 numbers because we have counted the contents of several, and 375 is the lowest 

 number and 500 the highest we have found. The egg is nearly globular, flat- 

 tened at the upper side — not perceptibly hollowed — with a dark point in the 

 centre of the flattened portion surrounded by a dusky halo. Its surface is 

 smooth under a magnifying power of 45 diameters; but when submitted to a 

 higher power, appears lightly punctured with minute dots. Its color is uniformly 

 white to the unaided vision; but the microscope reveals a ring of dusky yellow 

 surrounding it immediately below the flattened portion. Its diameter is l-25th 

 of an inch. 



A careless observer seeing a dead leaf here and there upon his trees might 

 readily conceive that it was accidentally blown into the position it occupied, and 

 perhaps held there by a spider's web or something of that sort; but as will be 

 seen from what we have said, a closer examination will furnish food for thought, 

 in the wise arrangements made by the parent moth in providing for the safety 

 of her future offspring; and at the same time may well excite alarm in the fruit 

 grower's mind when he perceives promise of the approaching birth of such a 

 horde of hungry caterpillars as even one of these will produce. 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



Coleopteea. — The following notes upon the localities fur finding certain 

 species of Coleoptera, all taken in April, in Massachusetts, may be of some use 

 to collectors:— 



Under much decayed butternut bark were found Omosityt, colon, Hister 

 Lecontei, Ips fasciatuSjPIienolia grossajCucujus clavipes, and Cossonus platalea. 

 About fresh-cut maple and birch stumps where the sap was flowing, Ipsfascia- 

 tuSj and sanguinolentus, and Staphylinidce of various species. Under loose 

 pine bark, Boros unicolor and Rkagium lineatum. Around fresh cut pine 

 wood where the pitch was oozing out on sunny days, Tomicuspini, Hylurgus 

 terebrans, Pissodes strobi, Hylobias pales, Clerus nigripes, and trifasciatus, 

 were very abundant. 



