id03 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



M^ 



A. — 2. The same Gelechian has another 

 foe of a larger build (Trychosu tunicula- 

 rubra, Fyles) Fig. 31, which intrudes a soli- 

 tary egg into the gall. From the egg comes a 

 larva with a good-sized mouth, the upper lip 

 of which has a beak-like formation for cutting 

 and tearing, (Fig. 32). This larva assails 

 the rightful inhabitant of the gall and devours 

 it. I have found it making its last meal of 

 the fragments of the chrysalis, (Fig 33). 



(<^^^) 



Fis:. 32. Larva of T. tunicula-rubra, mouth and terminal segment, 

 5!:reatly magnified, (orginal). 



Fig. 33. Chrysalis of T. tunicula-nibra, greatly 

 magnified, (ongnial). 



B. — 1. In our walks in the fall and winter we sometimes notice under the cross-bars of 

 fences and in other sheltered spots a flufi'y white or yellowish ball, that looks like a wad of cotton 

 batting. On examination we find that it is made up of delicate cocoons. The larvae which 

 spun these cocoons lived inside a forest tent-caterpillar (or one of some other species) till it 

 ceased to feed. Then they broke through the skin, and " spun up " over the remains of their 

 host. They belong to the species Apanteles longicornis, Prov. I have a mass of such cocoons 

 before me, and the flies that came from it — they number 95. What a brood of larvaa an 

 unfi>rtunate caterpillar must have carried within it! How rapid under favorable circumstances 

 nuij'j be the increase of this Apanteles! 



B. — 2. At St. Joseph, about a mile from Levis, there is, beside the Intercolonial Railway, 

 a bold escarpment of great height, which forms a conspicuous object in the view from Quebec. 

 It is crowned with a tangled growth of shrubbery. Its summit is the only spot in the neighbour- 

 hood, that I know of, in which the scented Lady's Slipper, {Cypripedinm, parviflorum, Salisb.) 

 is to be found. Last year while digging up soine roots of this, I unearthed a climbing cut-worm, 

 that evidently had been feeding upon the leaves of the plant. I took the caterpillar home, and 

 it went into chrysalis ; but from the chrysalis came — not a moth as I had expected, but — a 6ne 

 active specimen of Ichnenmon iKtri.s, Brulle. The creature had undergone its changes within 

 the body of its host. 



Examples might be multiplied of insects belonging to the several classes above mentioned. 

 Numbers of such insects are of economical importance, as attacking the depredators upon 

 various growing crops. Enough however has been said to show that a vast army of minute 

 assistants are working in favour of the husbandman ; and that, as regards the different modes 

 of their operations, (jood is undoubtedly the final goal o/ (seeming) ill. 



