260 



DARLING TO HARRIS. 



New Haven, May 14, 1846. 



I have been fortunate enough to take, on the raspberry 

 bushes, a plentiful supply of the new insect Selandria {Hoplo- 

 campa) ruin ; of which I send you several in a quill. That 

 you may see the manner in which the eggs are deposited, I 

 enclose in tlie quill (to prevent wilting) a leaf Avith a number 

 of eggs upon it, or rather in it. The eggs seem to have been 

 placed between the coats of the leaf, by the side of the ribs ; 

 and as the eggs increased in size, they have produced an oval 

 expansion of the undercoat, and a discoloration of the cuticle 

 of the upper side, directly over the egg. The larvae are now 

 beginning to come out on leaves that have a warm exposure, 

 and are near the ground. The winged insect is found resting 

 on the upper side of the leaves. When the leaf is touched the 

 insect falls as if dead, but in two or three seconds takes wing ; 

 they are very easily caught. 



HARRIS TO LE BARON. 



Cambridge, Sept. 5, 1850. 



On the sixth of August I left Cambridge for a visit to the 

 White Mountains, by way of Portland and Fryeburg, and 

 returned on the seventeenth by way of Franconia Notch, 

 Plymouth, Concord and Lowell. In the course of the visit . I 

 w^ent to Mount Pleasant, in Denmark, Maine, and passed a 

 night in tho house on the top of the mountain, thence through 

 the valley of the Saco to North Conway, where the Northern 

 Kearsarge, or Pequawket Mountain was visited. On going 

 through the White Mountain Notch, from the Willey House, — 

 where a dreadful avalanche or slide destroyed the whole Willey 

 family in August, 1826, filling the whole valley with ruin — it 



