ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 49 



can be examined as opportunity offers. A damp, cool cellar is the beet place to keep it 

 until such opportunities occur. For the examination of the moss, take a shallow box, 

 several inches square and about three deep, and replace the bottom by fine wire netting 

 of about eight holes to the linear inch. Placing this box upon a sheet of white paper, a 

 handful of moss is torn to pieces in it, and the insects which may be present will fall 

 through the netting. Before emptying the debris out of the box give the latter a sharp 

 tap to dislodge any that may be " playing possum " or clinging to the wire. The insects 

 which are now seen scampering off at different rates of speed may be picked up with a 

 fine forceps or the moistened tip of a camel's hair pencil, and dropped in a small phial 

 of alcohol or a cyanide bottle. It is well, if possible, to do this work in an uncarpeted 

 room, or one in which a few spiders and other forms which will surely escape, may not 

 create any disturbance. Spiders especially display great alacrity in making themselves 

 scarce, and there are many beetles that are most agile in their movements, and even if 

 picked up in the forceps will wx-iggle out and dart off in a new direction, always aiming, 

 however, for the farthest edge of the table. 



By adding the species collected in previous years my lists could be lengthened but I 

 intend to confine them to the results obtained from the gathering of one season. The 

 material examined consisted of about a peck collected on 17th Nov., about the margins of 

 a little swampy inlet below the aboretum of the Experimental Farm, and the contents of 

 an ordinary grain-sack filled, six days later, in Dow's swamp, (a regular cedar and 

 tamarac marsh) upon the opposite side of the canal. At the latter date the surface of 

 the ground was frozen and some snow had fallen, so that the moss was partially frozen 

 and mixed with snow, making the bag pretty heavy for portaging, and I remember that, 

 when I boarded an electric car with my burden, it provoked general curiosity (which 

 remained unsatisfied) on the part of my fellow passengers. I have separate records of the 

 insects from each place, but as the dates and localities were so near together I shall give 

 but one list of the coleoptera, hemiptera and hymenoptera with the joint number of 

 individuals of each species, to show their relative abundance. 



The total number of species enumerated is 147 ; of which 52 occurred in both local- 

 ities, 59 in Dow's swamp only and 36 at the Experimental Farm only. The number of 

 individuals mounted and examined was 1,345, of which 889 were from the swamp and 

 456 from the Farm. These figures do not represent all the insects yielded by the moss, 

 for of several of the commoner species no attempt was made to save all the examples, 

 while some individuals escaped in spite of all attempts to capture them. In addition 

 there were numerous individuals belonging to some of the other orders of insects, such as 

 flies, thrips, and spring-tails, of which there were several varieties always leaping around. 

 There were also many allied forms, such as mites, spiders, chelifers and myriapods. 

 Among the many larvae of various kinds may be noticed especially one which was not 

 infrequent, and which afforded apparently a striking instance of protective mimicry. 

 This was the larva of some fly, in which the segments of the body were so shaped and 

 ornamented as to give the creature, which was of a bright green colour, an exact resem- 

 blance to a fragment of the moss. 



The several varieties of moss contained in this gathering formed in themselves an 

 interesting subject for examination, and in addition to the various forms of life already 

 noted there were many examples of several of our smaller molluscs. Of these there were 

 probably more than a dozen species, and they were preserved and handed over to one of 

 my conchological friends to add to his collections and records. The examination of the 

 moss was not concluded for several weeks, and it was found that its occupants remained 

 alive and active so long as it was not allowed to become too dry, or was not exposed to 

 excessive cold. Many of the insects proved most interesting and several had not 

 previously been found by me. I regret that about one-third of the species have not yet 

 been satisfactorily named, which indicates that the knowledge of our insects is yet very 

 imperfect, and that more students are needed in the entomological field. 



4 EN. 



