REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST AXD BOTANIST 241 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



destroyed by beating these trees over a collecting net or an inverted umbrella, to be 

 afterwards emptied into some vessel containing water, with a little coal oil on the 

 surface. The beetles seem to be particularly fond of certain varieties of grapes, as for 

 instance the Clinton. When this is known, the usefulness of planting a few vines of 

 this variety in a vineyard as a trap is apparent. These will act as decoys upon which 

 the beetles will collect and from which they may be easily beaten and destroyed. The 

 rose tree, in all of its varieties, and the blossom of the rhubard are also very attractive, 

 md may be planted so as to draw off the attack from fruit trees. Prof. Webster has 

 made the discovery (Proc. Ass'n Econ. Ent. 1899, p. 70) that 95 per cent of the adult 

 beetles may be killed by spraying them with half a pound of fish-oil soap in a gallon 

 of water. The suds must be thrown directly on to the beetles while they are clustered 

 on the blossoms of the decoy plants, but spraying trees with the soap has no effect in 

 keeping the beetles off afterwards. 



Among less known injuries to fruit crops which have been reported during the 

 past season, mention may be made of the following : — 



Click Beetles (Elateridce). — The food habits of these beetles are somewhat 

 various. Although, as they are the perfect state of wireworms, which are so destructive 

 to all classes of vegetation, they must be considered among the worst of injurious 

 insects, yet they have been occasionally caught in the act of feeding on plant-lice. 

 Many kinds of Click Beetles are found on flowers, and complaints of extensive injury 

 to apple and pear blossoms have been received concerning two species, namely, C or y Di- 

 bit es tarsalis, Melsh., and C. caricinus, Germ. During the past summer specimens 

 were received from Mr. M. Young, of Gardenville, Ont., of another species not previ- 

 ously recorded as a fruit enemy, i.e., Corymbites cylindriformis, Hbst., with state- 

 ment that they had bitten plums, apples and other fruits. Mr. C. W. Nash, of Toronto, 

 also forwarded specimens of the same species for name, which had been sent to him as 

 depredators on the flowers of apples. 



The Blackberry Soft-scale (Lecanium Fitchii, Sign.). — A remarkable outbreak 

 of this scale insect occurred at Trenton, Ont., ample specimens of which were sent to 

 me by Mr. John D. Evans, who stated that about eight acres of blackberries in different 

 orchards were covered with the scales from about a foot above the ground to the top, 

 and that the injury was chiefly on old plantations, probably ten or twelve years old. 

 A young plantation at some little distance was very little affected. The examination, 

 later in the season, of the material received from Mr. Evans revealed the fact that the 

 scale insects were severely infested by parasites : A fungus, a species of Cordyceps, 

 two species of small lady-bird beetles, Hyperaspis proba, Say, and H. signata, Oliv., 

 and no less than six species of hymenoptera, Encyrtus fuscus, Howard, Aphycus annuli- 

 pes, Ashm., Coccophagus fiavoscutcllum, Ashm., Blastothrix sp., and Hicroterys sp., all 

 in large numbers, and, as well as these, a single specimen of a very interesting minute 

 Proctotrypid Eutochus xanthothorax, Ashm., of which Mr. Ashmead, when kindly 

 naming the above specimens, says : ' A Mymarid described fifteen years ago from 

 Florida. (Can. Ent. XIX., 1887, p. 193.) This is the second specimen seen.' Nearly 

 all of the same parasites were reared in equally large numbers by Mr. Evans from 

 part of the same material collected at Trenton. 



The Plum Gall-mite (Cecidoptes pruni, Am.). — A very unusual but rather seri- 

 ous injury was discovered last winter by Mr. Geo. E. Fisher, at Queenston, Ont. This 

 was due to the small mite named above. Mr. Fisher says : ' The galls are plentiful in 

 this one orchard at Queenston. I have not noticed them anywhere else.' In June last, 

 Mr. Carl E. Fisher, of Dulverton, Queenston, also sent specimens, reporting that it 

 occurred only on one of his own trees, but that he had seen it frequently on Common 

 Blue and Red Egg plums in Queenston village. He feared that it might become a 

 serious disease. In Europe this mite occasionally becomes a pest of some importance, 



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