138 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



The butterflies are not numerous in species, but in the 

 canons are tolerably plentiful in individuals. The commonest 

 seems a small skipper, which I have not yet caught. Then 

 the American variety of our Cambervvell Beauty is next: it 

 is very beautiful on the wing, and is so strong and solid and 

 big that whether in passing you or in touching it, as in knock- 

 ing it down, it feels more like a bird than a fragile butterfly ; 

 it has a way, too, of soaring or gliding about like a hawk or 

 a swallow, that is, bird-like, although it lilts about, too, like 

 other butterflies. Then there is a white, which 1 have not 

 caught, but which I think will turn out to be a Hipparchia^ 

 like H. Galathea ; one or two Argytmis ; and an American 

 species, which I recollect by head-njark, but not by name. 



The poplars, or cotton-woods, in the streets, are terribly 

 mangled by a Cossus : its holes are just like those of our 

 own Ligniperda ; but its chrysalids, of which the remains 

 stand still sticking out of the holes, are more like those of the 

 leopard-moth in size and appearance. The cotton-wood is a 

 poplar with a white bark and a sharp brown bud; that is all 

 I can say yet. I picked a twig two days ago with the ring 

 of eggs of the lackey-moth round it, exactly like our own ; 

 and to-day on opening the bag, in which I had put it, I find 

 the caterpillars had begun to come out, — little black, tiny 

 things, like our own. It is a diff'erent species I know, from 

 memory, but I forget its name. 



Galls are numerous on the oak (a low-growing scrub-oak, 

 called the burr-oak) ; even although leafless I have found 

 three galls still lingering, two on the branchlets and a third 

 in the axils of the buds and leaves ; and I observe, both on 

 these and on injured twigs of cotton-wood, and by the way- 

 side, that the infested and injured twigs continue to bear the 

 remains of their leaves while the normal twigs are leafless. 

 The sage-brush (Artemisia ? sp.) carries three galls. I 

 think it is chiefly so aff"ected in the neighbourhood of this 

 city. There are three kinds : — one, the common sage-brush, 

 that cattle will only eat in the last extremity, but which still 

 keeps them alive; another kind, called white sage, which 

 they like better, and on which they fatten ; and a third. 

 The reason of the prevalence of galls on it here (if it is really 

 as it seems to me) may be that the plants are not thriving, — 

 suff"ering from the improvement of the climate ; for it seems 

 that the cultivation and irrigation are producing a change in 

 the climate. A brick-maker told me that "adobes," or sun- 

 dried bricks, could be made and used ten years ago when he 



