46 THE REPORT OF THE No. 36 



The linnet, the goldfinch, the bullfinch, the greenfinch, the whitethroat, the 

 yellowhammer, the thrush, the misselthrush, and other birds, do their best to 

 render the concert of the feathered tribes eit'ective. 



Here and there in the road-side hedges a crab-tree may be seen, and here and 

 there a holly. 



The holly is sometimes grown as an ornamental hedge. John Evelyn had 

 such a hedge, and he tells how the Czar of Muscovy (Peter the Great) and his 

 outlandish crew amused themselves by trundling one another in a wheel-barrow, 

 backwards and forwards through the prickly barrier. Evelyn had lent his house 

 and grounds for the accommodation of the Muscovites. When the foreigners 

 retired, they left a muss behind them. 



II. 



Canadian Lanes. 



Doubtless, in olden times, when men were few and land grants undej' tJie 

 feudal system extensive, hedging and ditching were ready means for enclosing and 

 draining the land, and they have been enduring means. 



in Canada the roads that remind one of English lanes, though in truth they 

 are very different, are such as lead through parts of the country in which the old- 

 fashioned snake-fences still enclose the farms and in which brush has been allowed 

 to grow freely in the angles of the fences. In such localities, old roads abandoned 

 for new ones, concession roads leading to a few homesteads off the main lines of 

 travel, roads through sugar-woods and the uncleared forest— these, in their quiet- 

 ude and freedom from dust, are suggestive of English lanes — though they lack 

 much of their beauty. 



I will s|3eak briefly of a few such roads : 



The Caledonia Road. — Skirting a tract well known to the naturalists of 

 Ottawa, by the name of " The Beaver Meadow," is a lane connecting the Aylmer 

 Road with the Chelsea Road. It was originally a " Corduroy road," and it still 

 ends in the remains of a swamp, in wliich Typha latifolia grows freely. Improve- 

 ments in the neighbourhood have altered its appearance : the logs are gone, and the 

 bed-rock is seen in much of its length ; and this, in summer, is carpeted with Stone- 

 crop (Seditm acre L.) 



Alas! the Beaver Meadow has now been- cleared, drained and laid out into 

 building lots. The city naturalists will have to go farther afield for their investi- 

 gations, and the Caledonia Road will soon become a city street. When I lived in 

 Hull, however, I spent many tranquil hours within its quiet limits. 



Muddy spots in the road were much frequented by butterflies. In bright 

 days in April hibernated specimens of Aglais milherti Godart might be seen there. 

 The spring larvse of this species inay be found feeding upon the young shoots of 

 the Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica L.). I raised two batches of them in 1911. 

 They went into chrysalis in the first week of June. Sixty per cent, of them were 

 parasitised by Protopanteles atalantce Packard. The grubs of this fly issued from 

 the larvae of the butterfly — not through the spiny upper parts, but — through the 

 tender ventral portions. They spun their white, compact cocoons in clusters 

 attached to the skins of their victims. The first imagos of milherti appeared in 

 my breeding-cage on the 13th of June. 



