54 



nately there are many who seem unable to understand their own interests, and will delay 

 cuttinoj or refuse to burn. Some fields, too, belong to men of other occupations, and 

 as they become unprofitable, they allow them to go to ruin and to become breeding 

 places for all sorts of pests, fungus and insect. 



Next in order, and indeed sometimes even worse, is the larva of a Sesiid, pro- 

 bably Bemhecia viarginata, Harr. The eggs of this insect, which I have not yet 

 seen, are laid late in August or in September. The young larva hatches that same 

 fall, and in the following spring is found in canes of the previous year's growth, boring 

 only a short distance up from the roots. It is then less than half an inch long and 

 of a faint reddish tint, whicli it loses as the summer advances, in July it leaves the 

 cane on which usually no fruit has set, and attacks a new shoot, eating around the 

 base and burrowing up between baik au(i wood. Tiie sliooo wilts, but the larva seems 

 not to travel more until the following spring. It is then an inch long, white in 

 colour, and with a brown head. It eats at the crown until the new shoots are large 

 and vigorous, and early in July the wilting shoot in infested fields indicate the where- 

 abouts of the larvse. They pupate in August, one pupa newly formed being found on 

 the 10th, and a number on the 2.3rd, but at these dates no imago was yet noticed. 

 One pupa had wriggled otit through the stem at the latter date, apparently ready to 

 transform. The insect is important because it cuts two year's growth of infested hills. 

 The remedy is also mechanical. It consists in cutting the shoots as they wilt close to 

 the crown, and destroying the contained larvae. 



Fig-. 12. 



Sometimes in June a hill will suddenly wilt and die as if burnt. Search will in all 

 cases reveal an enormous longicorn larva, (Fig. 12) which I make out to be that of 

 Prionus laticollis (Fig. 13). In some old fields it is very 

 mischievous, boring huge channels in the main root. I am 

 not aware that this has been heretofore noted as infesting 

 blackberries, and simply record the habit: 



Another insect infesting growing canes escaped me during 

 the present season because unexpected and unnoticed In 

 cutting some new shoots I found them marked, through the pith 

 from base nearly to tip, a distance of three or four feet, by a 

 larval channel. The new canes had been already topped a first 

 time and I missed the culprit. In some fields not yet topped I 

 found that the borer had emerged or had been parasitized, 

 fragments only remaining, which seemed to prove it Lepidop- 

 terous. No apparent damage was done by the insect and 

 none of the bored stems died. 



A little gall on young shoots, found very locally only 

 is formed by a Cecidomyiid very near to Lasioptera fari- 

 nosa, if not identical with it. The young shoots are al- Fig. 13. 



ways trimmed out before the imago emerges in spring, and 



no damage is done. The larva is also parasitized qtiite frequently, and only a few 

 imagos were obtained. The relations of the parasites to each other are still somewhat 

 obscure, and one of the species may be secondary. 



