56 THE REPORT OF THE No. 19 



nel or a sponge, drawing the leaves one bj^ one through a fold of the flannel. 

 For this purpose any soap will answer, but tar soap is the best. There is also 

 •A special tobacco soap which is made for this purpose. When a plant is re- 

 ceived and is found to be thoroughly infested by scale insects it is well to make 

 a small quantity of kerosene emulsion and this may be done easily in an or- 

 dinary quart bottle, placing the ingredients in it and shaking it violently by 

 band. After treating a plant, either with strong soap suds or kerosene emul- 

 sion, it is well to let it stand for a short time, from half an hour to an hour, and 

 tben wash off the soap. When spraying or washing large plants they may 

 be stood in a bath or other large receptacle. When roses or other plants are 

 infested by plant lice, many of these may be dislodged by simply puffing pyre- 

 tbrum insect powder on to the colonies. This will cause many of them to 

 drop, but will not kill them and unless they are swept up and destroyed they 

 will crawl back again on to the plants. For thoroughly cleaning the plants 

 both of the insects and of the honeydew produced by them, a washing with 

 soap suds or kerosene emulsion will be necessary. When a prickly cactus is 

 found to be infested with woolly aphis or other scale insects, perhaps, the 

 easiest treatment is to touch the separate insects with a small paint brush 

 dipped in alcohol. "Eed Spiders," which are among the most troublesome 

 pests of the window gardener, are reduced in numbers by keeping the plants 

 as cool and damp as possible, but more than this is necessary, and the sov- 

 ereign remedy for these and all kinds of mites, is to dust them frequently 

 with flowers of sulphur. This material in no way injures the plants but ren- 

 ders them very distasteful to the spinning mites which as a class are known 

 by the name of Red Spiders. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL RECORD, 1904. 

 By James Fletcher, Dominion Entomologist, Ottawa. 



The season of 1903 was cool and disappointing, but that of 1904 was 

 even more so. Collectors from every part of the Dominion make com- 

 plaints of the small number of days which could be called good collecting 

 days. In my own experience of thirty years in Canada I have never known 

 a season when insects were so scarce, and this character extended from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific. I have been pleased to note the stimulating effect 

 of the publication of the Entomological Record among all classes of collec- 

 tors; but as compiler I must still urge collectors to read this Record care- 

 fully and make the fullest use of the manj' opportunities for advancing 

 their studies thereby aft'orded- In preparing the lists herewith submitted, 

 I have received much assistance from collectors who have sent in much 

 more regularly than heretofore, records of their captures. Special lists have 

 also helped very much by giving critical notes when identifying specimens. 

 Valuable reports of a more extended nature, given herewith, have been re- 

 ceived from Mr. W. D. Kearfott on Micro-lepidoptera, from the Rev. G. W. 

 Taylor, on Geometridse, and from Mr. E. D. Harris, on Cincindelidae 

 These reports are of special value, and the writers have most generously 

 offered their services to any of our collectors who will correspond with them- 



Other specialists, who, as in the past, have done good service for Can- 

 adian entomology, have this year again put us under deep obligations for ex- 

 pert assistance. Dr. Howard, the Chief of the Bureau of Entomology, at 

 Washington, as well as Messrs. Dyar, Coquillet and Ashmead, of Washing- 



