1903 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 101 



Locusts : — Were common in dry places, bub mosl of them were in the nymph stage, 



Tettix sp. : — Were common in wet places and along river banks. 



Pine-Cone Willow-Gall (Cecidomyia strobiloides) :— Galls were found on the Heart- 

 leaved Willow. 



Birch Aphis (Aphis sp.) : — Aphids in this country were very uncomir.on, but Birch 

 Aphids were found in small numbers on nearly all Birches. 



Potato Beetles (Doryphora decem-lineata) :— A few Potato Beetles were found in the Indian 

 gardens at Fort Mattagami. 



Aspen Leaf-Roller : — This insect has caused considerable damage to Aspens in this Region. 



Bnbn of (Ulead Leaf-(Ml :— This was common on many trees around Frederick House 

 Lake. 



HUNTING FOR FOSSIL INSECTS. 



By Samuel H. Scuddek, 



Fully thirty years ago, the last week of July found my companion and myself in a railway 

 town in Wyoming, camping on the floor of the storage-room of a Western post office and "store" 

 combined, frequented alike by Indian?, half-breeds and whites. We had just room to lay 

 ourselves down at night on buffalo robes in the narrow passage between barrels of molasses on 

 one side and cheeses and firkins of pretty strong butter on the other, while skins and furs 

 dangled from the rafters overhead. Sometimes cats entered by the one open window and 

 actually fought on our prostrate bodies, awaking us from profound sleep by squalling in our 

 very ears. Green River served us for our toilet. 



We were on the search of fossil insects. A few had been obtained in a railway cutting 

 near by and this indicated that more might be found, as proved to be the case. We prospected 

 at various points in the face of the high red buttes which tower above Green River, and where 

 the thin strata may be traced uninterruptedly for many miles ; but at no spot did we discover 

 nearly as many specimens in a given time as at the " Fish Cut," a place across the river two 

 or three miles from the town, where, in making a cutting for the railway many fossil fishes had 

 been exhumed. 



To this point, day after day, we went with our satchels, hammers, lunches and canteens, 

 and sat down upon the bank, the walls about us making the July sun still more scorching. 

 There was absolutely no shade, and our only protection was a flat sponge in the crown of our 

 straw hats, parsimoniously wetted now and then from our canteens. The rock here was very 

 hard, and the process of cleaving the shale to disclose the fossils rather trying to the hands, 

 which were well blistered and lacerated after our ten days' work. We obtained a few hundred 

 specimens. Most of them, it is true, were rather imperfect, but fossil insects were a great 

 rarity, and now and then we were cheered by a particularly fine specimen, and renewed our 

 eff'orts at the precise level at which this occurred. We came to the conclusion that they were 

 mostly found in a small pocket of rock which we exhausted. 



Twelve years later, I visited the place again with a different companion. The place was 

 changed, for though there was the same alignment of drinking saloons within quick reach of 

 the station, there was a neat hotel at the station itself, and creature comforts were not lacking. 

 This time we attacked the buttes and especially Pilot Butte on the north side of the railway 

 and were more successful than before, finding many specimens at several horizons, and had the 

 advantage of working a part of the day in the shadow of the butte. 



Florissant, in central Colorado, is now the most famous locality tor fossil insects in America, 

 and this I have visited at three diff"erent time?. On the last occasion, having two or three 

 boys with me, we procured a tent, hired a cook, and camped near the little hillock which has 



