85 



excrement of caterpillars. It is placed on the Ottawa list for the first 

 time this year, several specimens having been obtai.ied near Dow's 

 Swamp, on Saturday, 26th August. 



Phjfnata Wolffi, a peculiarly shaped bug, with robust raptorial 

 fore-legs, otten lies in wait among the flowers for bees and other insects. 

 It was quite abundant at Casselman on one occasion (Sth Aug.) when 

 the Club visited that point, but none have been observed about Ottawa 

 this season. 



The Mullein is able to nourish its broad flannel leaves and tall 

 spikes of yellow flowers in thin and stony fields, where even the thistle 

 is starved out. It is not much attacked or frequented by insects, but 

 a small siout weevil, or snout-beetle, Gyinne,ron teter^ infests the seed- 

 vessels. The larvffi and pupoe may generally be obtamed from the 

 nutlets, and they were especially abundant this year in mulleins growing 

 along the gravelly beach at Aylmer. On to ne spikes there was hardly 

 an uninfested nutlet. 



Probably fifty per cent, of the seeds of the common Canada thistle 

 are devoured by the maggots of a two-winged fly, Ttypeta florescenticB^ 

 whose presence may be detected by the irregular appearance of the 

 down, or pappus, on plucking which it comes away without the seed 

 and is found all matted together at the base and containing one or more 

 yellowish maggots or pupae, which are those of the beneficial fly. 



A parasite of the fly is also very common and destroys a large 

 proportion of the maggots. It belongs to the genus Solenoius of the 

 Chalcididfe, and has been named by Hr. Ashmead S. Fietcheri, but its 

 description has not yet been published. 



From the infested heads are also bred numbers of another small 

 chalcid, very similar in appearance to the Solenotus. Mr. Ashmead, 

 who has described it in the Canadian Entomologist, considers it to be a 

 secondary parasite. 



Upon the Milkweeds at this season a very handsome greenish-black 

 beetle with orange markings is not uncommon. It is of the same size 

 as the Colorado potato-beetle, to which it is closely allied, and has 

 received the name of Doryphora clivicollis. 



A handsome black and scarlet bug, Lyxcius Kalinii^ is also abun- 

 dant, but the strong odour which it emits, in common with many 

 hemiptera, makes its capture and investigation somewhat unpleasant. 



