ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



REPORT FROM THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SOHIETY OF ONTARIO TO THE 

 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. 



By the Rev. Thomas W. Fyles, F.L.S., Delegate. 



I beg to state respectfully that the Society I have the honour to serve on this important 

 occasion, is in a healthy and growing condition — sound financially, possessing a large 

 amount of materiel, and held in estimation at home and abroad. 



It is to be expected that the subject of economic entomology will commend itself 

 more and more amongst the intelligent members of a fruit growing and agricultural com- 

 munity. The insect enemies of the farmer and gardener are numerous and persevering, 

 and accomplish incalculable harm ; and a society that studies the life histories of these 

 foes, and searches for checks upon their efforts, can hardly fail to win adherents and to 

 command support. Accordingly we find that at the thirty-second annual meeting of our 

 Society the council was able to congratulate the members upon " the steady increase in 

 numbers which continued to take place, and the hearty interest that was maintained in 

 the various departments of the Society's work." 



The headquarters of the association are in London, the chief town of one of the mo 

 important agricultural and horticultural sections of Ontario, and a fitting centre for a 

 society wJiich is aided by the Ontario Government, and is intended to promulgate prac- 

 tical information amongst the cultivators of the soil, as well.as to foster scientific research. 

 The Government grant made to the Society annually is $1,000. 



That the Society is doing the work expected from it, and doing it well, may be 

 shewn on sufficient testimony. Thus Mr. L 0. Howard, Chief Entomologist of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, Washington, says of it : " The Society has conscientiously complied 

 with the conditions of the grant. Its reports published annually have greatly increased 

 in size, and in the general interest of their contents. They have contained much matter 

 of economic value as well as of educational interest" And the editor of an English 

 magazine speaks of the report last issued as one of more interest to him than all others 

 received from America. Doubtless the Society, with a larger grant, could accomplish 

 more good. 



The annual meeting, to which I have referred, was held on the seventh and eighth 

 days of November last. The value of the addresses and of the papers read, and the 

 beauty and rarity of the specimens exhibited on this occasion were fully appreciated by 

 those who were privileged to attend. The President's address was particularly valuable 

 as an instructive sketch, historical and geographical, of the Society and its work. It 

 was learnt from it that the society has observers and correspondents from east to 

 west throughout this vast Dominion — from St. John, N. B, and Halifax, N. S., to 

 Esquimalt in British Columbia and Masset in Queen Charlotte Islands. A very valuable 

 paper on " The Rhopolocera of the Eastern Provinces of Canada," was read on this 

 occasion by the Rev. Dr. Bethune, editor of the Canadian Entomologist lb gave a com- 

 plete list of species and the names of the localities in which each local kind has been 

 taken with — as far as is known — the food plants of the different species. 



The titles of the other papers read at the meeting are as follows : — 



"Insects Collected in Bermuda During the Winter of 1894," by Gamble Geddes, 

 Toronto. 



"Common Names for Butterflies — Shall We Have Them?" by H. H. Lyman, 

 Montreal. 



" The Pitcher-Plant Moth," by James Fletcher, Ottawa. 



'* Catastega aceriella Clemens, Semasia signatana Clemens," by the Rev. Thomas W. 

 Fyles, South Quebec. 



"Notes on a Few Canadian Coleoptera," by W. Hague Harrington, F.R.S.C.» 

 Ottawa. 



