THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 235 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 



Parasite on Pieris rap^e. — The news of the appearance of an ef- 

 fective parasite on P. rapce will, we doubt not, be hailed with delight by our 

 Lower Canadian friends and the gardeners of the North-Eastern States. 

 Mr. P. S. Sprague, of Boston, Mass., has kindly sent us several specimens, 

 of both sexes, of this new arrival, respecting which he writes as follows : — 

 " The P. rapes chrysalis parasite, mentioned in my communication (Can. 

 Ent., vol. hi., page 158) proves, on examination by Dr. Packard, to be 

 the introduced Pteromalus puparum. My son gathered about fifty of the 



chrysalids, every one of which was infested, as many 

 many as forty specimens coming from a single one. 

 The female walks over the chrysalis feeling with her 

 antennae for a suitable place to insert her ovipositor, 

 and when found, drills a hole, which takes upon an 

 average one minute in time." [Figure 40 repre- 

 sents the larva and chrysalis of this imported pest.] 

 The following excellent communication by Mr. 

 Sprague's son, who bids fair to become an eminent 

 Entomologist, we copy from the Rural New Yorker : 

 " A New Enemy to the Cabbage Worm.— 

 Although 1 am a little boy, I think I can write 

 something for the entomological column that will please the old folks. 

 Almost everybody who raises cabbages has had a great many de- 

 stroyed this year by a little green caterpillar, and I suppose they have 

 seen a new, white butterfly, called the Pieris rapee, flying around them. 



This butterfly lays a little white egg on the leaves, which, in a few 

 days, hatches out a little green caterpillar, which eats until it grows about 

 an inch in length ; then it goes and hunts up some sheltered place where 

 it can go into a chrysalis. I was looking for some chrysalids for my 

 father, when I saw a little fly walking all over them ; by-and-by it made a 

 little hole in the chrysalis to lay its eggs in. This fly is almost one-eighth 

 of an inch long ; it is of a golden colour. Some of the flies have yellow 

 legs, and others have dark ones. They have four wings ; the body is 

 pointed at the end ; there are about fifty of these flies in a chrysalis ; the 

 chrysalis looks as if it were all right, but if you break it open you will find 

 it full of little grubs. This little fly kills so many of the chrysalids that in 

 a few years the butterflies will not be so common, and cabbages will not 

 be destroyed. — H. W. S., Boston, Mass." 



