[FLETCHER] INJURIOUS INSECTS OF CANADA 215 



wrapping loosely round their stems a strip of paper about two inches 

 wide by three long, placing it so that about an inch and a half of the 

 band is above the ground. Strips of tin answer the same purpose, the 

 heavy-bodied caterpillars not being able to crawl up the smooth surface. 



The Clover Cutworm {Maniestra trifolii, Kott.). — Although named 

 after the clover plant, upon which certainly this insect does feed, the 

 eaterjîillars attack very many other crop plants and many weeds. Per- 

 haps the worst injuries which have been reported in Canada, were upon 

 field pe^as, mangels, cabbages and turnips (Rep. Exp. Farms, 1888, p. 

 57). Spinach and the " Lamb's Quarters " {CJienopodium album) are 

 common food plants of green caterpillars much less marked with 

 dark lines than those which 'are usually found on peas, mangels and tur- 

 nips ; but, for the meantime, all are included in the species M. trifolii. 

 The last serious outbreak of the Clover Cutworm was in 1896 upon 

 turnips and peas in the townships around Rice Lake, Ont. 



The Corn Worm {HeliotMs armiger, Hbn.). — This insect, which 

 is common in the United States and is so well known in the South as 

 the notorious Boll Worm of the cotton fields, is by no me'ans a frequent 

 crop pest in Canada, but is probably the cause of some loss in fields of 

 late corn every year, and occasionally, as last autumn (Rep. Ent. Soc. 

 Ont., 1898, p. 82), becomes a pest of some importance, no less than 

 95 per cent of the ears of both sweet corn and yellow field corn having 

 been injured near Orillia, Ont., by the caterpillars eating into and much 

 disfiguring the soft grains beneath the inclosing husks. 



The Spotted Blister-beetle {Epicauta maculata, Say). — The in- 

 juries to potatoes by the Gray and the Black Blister-beetles are some- 

 times considerable in the old provinces of Canada, but they are inter- 

 mittent in occurrence. In the West another species, the Spotted Blister- 

 beetle, of about the same size but spotted all over with minute black 

 points, frequently appears suddenly in large numbers. As the Colo- 

 rado Potato Beetle does not occur as a pest of the potato w^est of Mani- 

 toba, no regular treatment of potato fields with poisonous applications 

 is practised and consequently much damage is sometimes wrought 

 before anything can be done to prevent it. In the larval state tlie 

 blister-beetles are parasitic upon the eggs of locusts, but in the perfect 

 form they are ravenous vegetable-feeders. When these insects occur, 

 the crops attacked should at once be freely dusted or sprayed with 

 Paris green or a solution of whale-oil soap. 



The Western Blister-beetle (Cantharis Nuttallii, Say).— Another 

 of the blister-beetles and one of the handsomest creatures we have in 

 our insect fauna is the Western Blister-beetle, a species an inch in length. 



