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Buffalo in May 1884; the plan failed, however, and, as it turned out, 

 the oversight led to good results. On revisiting the spot in June of this 

 year 1 at once identified the pitch-cocoons marked in June 1883, then 

 one year old. and on examining them 1 could find no reason for think- 

 ing that nitidis escaped from them in 1884; on opening one of them a 

 live chrysalid was found within; tne other was cut out with an axe and 

 on fuly 6th gave a moth, now in my collection. 



These facts do not amount to demonstration, although to me they 

 indicate a high degree of probability that the life-period of this /Egcrian 

 is completed the third year. For, by way of application, the fully formed 

 pitch-masses of June 1883 were caused by larvae hatched in 1882 since 

 die imagos of 1883 were just appearing, and had moths issued in 1884 

 the opening, pupa-shell and pupa-cell would have been easily seen until 

 18S5. It is scarcely possible that eggs were laid in 18S3 from which 

 larvae occupied these masses formed by a previous generation or by some 

 other animal. On examination of scores of examples I have failed to 

 find traces of any other insect in the pitch, at least, such as could cause 

 the exudation. ,Pinipeslis Zimmermani causes somewhat similar forma- 

 tions, but they are readily separated from those of the ./Egerian. 



The egg and the very young larvoe have not been seen by me: the 

 former is evidently deposited near a wound in the tree; the young not 

 being able to penetrate the outer bark of the pine trunk. They rarely 

 occupy branches and have not been found in small trunks, i.e. from 

 three to five years growth; on the other hand they prefer young pines 

 from six inches to a foot in diameter, especially such as have grown up 

 when the original pine forests have been mostly removed. 



For obvious reasons larva; boring into woody stems or the roots of 

 trees or shrubs are well protected from insect parasites. A few references 

 occur, however, to instances of hymenopterous parasites of our wood- 

 boring yEgerian larvae; one, Phceogmcs ato\ parasitic in Podosesia syr- 

 ingce, has been noticed by G. H. French, Papilio I, 106, and another, 

 an fchneumon, in the same, by Herbert Osborn, Papilio II, 71. Thus 

 far I have found no mention of a dipterous parasite of any of our species 

 of the group. The two-winged fly exhibited with the examples of 

 Harmonia pint escaped from a pupa of the same and is a parasite of the 

 same. May 30, 1885, at Portage, N. Y., I removed amass of pitch that 

 proved to contain a pupa; it was kept in a proper box when it soon 

 lost its motion and the puparium of the fly was observed within its shell. 

 The fly appeared June 20th. It has been sent to Dr. C. V. Riley for 

 identification, but it was not in his collection and it was not specifically 

 identified; it is a species of Tachina. I am at a loss to understand, 



