103 



ENTOMOLOGY. 



Edited by W. Hague Harrington. 



The cool nights and light frosts which occured in September have 

 had a marked effect on the abundance of insect life. On bright days 

 Clouded Yellows and White Cabbage Butterflies have been abundant, 

 and towards the end of the month a third brood api)eared of both the 

 Nettle B niter fiy (Vanessa Milbertii) and the Camberwell Beauty {Van- 

 essa Antiopa). After a few trials of their newly gained wings, these 

 gems of the summer landscape will seek some quiet nook in cave or 

 hollow tree, and sink into a state of torpor from which they will only 

 be aroused by the returning warmth of opening Spring. On Sept. 25ih 

 a single specimen of Peck's Skipper {Pamphila Peck'us) was seen sipping 

 the nectar from a stalwart Michaelmas Daisy (Aster punicetis). 



Several caterpillars were sent to the leaders during the month. 

 Hidden in a den made by catching together two or three leaves of Salix 

 cordata or other rough-leaved willows, the solitary caterpillars of Niso 

 «/«d?i?j- /(Tif//^^' were several times found. These have pile green slug- 

 shaped bodies with large brown heads, separated from the body by a 

 small neck. They apparently pass the winter in the caterpillar stnte. 



The beautiful black, yellow and white Zebra caterpillars of Mam- 

 estra fiida have been very abundant and destructive. Their numbers, 

 however, have been much reduced by a minute parasite of the Procto- 

 trypid genus (Tricho^ratnma) which passes all its preparatory stagi^s 

 inside the egg. The moth which lays the egg from which the Zebra 

 caterpillars hatch, deposits from loo to 250 in a flat patch on the under 

 side of a leaf. Of over twenty of these patches collected in the begin- 

 ning of September, not a single egg produced the caterpillar, but in- 

 stead the minute parasite above named. The same microscopic bene- 

 factor, or a closely allied species, did good service in destroying the egg 

 of the Imported Currant Saw-fly, and of a new imported enemy of the 

 willow which has only lately appeared in America in the shape of 

 another Saw-fly (JVematus pallidiveniris). The event of most importance 

 in this line is the sudden and wide-spread appearance in Canada of the 

 Cattle Horn-fly (Hcetnatobia serrata). The habits and the best remedies 

 for this pest are all given in the recently issued Bulletin 14 of the 

 Central Experimental Farm. — J. F. 



