22 B. C. ENTOMOLOGICAL PROCEEDINGS, 1911. 



Mr. Bush — I quite agree that the crab-apple trees are bad and as 

 they grow more or less in clumps, their destruction would not entail so 

 much labor as one would think. 



Mr. Wallace — How about the Government lands? 



Mr. Cunningham — Let them also be attended to. 



Mr. Chairman — I am sure we have to thank Mr. Cunningham for 

 his excellent paper, and I trust he will favour us with another of equal 

 practical importance another \ear. I wish now to draw your attention 

 to the ne.xt paper on the programme, the commercial culture of the 

 Narcissus. A recent importation in the form of the Narcissus Fly from 

 Holland is causing much consternation to the growers of bulbs on Van- 

 couver Island, and we are pleased to welcome Mr. Wallace here today 

 as a practical grower of this class of stock. It has been the special en- 

 deavour on the part of our secretary to introduce the practical side into 

 these meetings. I will now call on Mr. Wallace. 



Mr. Wallace proceeded to give the members a short extempore 

 account of the trouble the Narcissus Fly has been to him on \ ancouver 

 Island, dealing briefly with methods he had himself tried towards 

 eradicating this insect. (His paper will appear at some later time.) 



Mr. Chairman — Our secretary has been fortunate enough to obtain 

 an account of the depredations of this Narcissus Fly by ]\Ir. Priestly 

 Norman of \'ictoria, a gentleman who has been in close touch with the 

 commercial aspect of bulb-growing on the Island. I will now ask our 

 secretary to read Mr. Norman's paper. 



"MERODON EQUESTRIS" IN SOUTHERN BRITISH 

 COLUMBIA. 



" Mfrodon Equcslns ," or Narcissus Fly, is an insect, resembling, 

 roughly speaking, an ordinary bumble-bee, about the size of a large blue- 

 bottle or blow-fly. 



A still closer resemblance may be drawn to the horse-fly of the 

 LTpper Countr\', with which many are familiar. The similarity to the 

 latter insect is so striking that the name " Eqiiestris" was derived from 

 it, this insect being much better known to the world generally, and 

 having a far greater sphere of action than the Narcissus F!}-, whose 

 ravages are principally confined to the Narcissus alone. 



In speaking of this insect, let it be understood that I make no asser- 

 tions. I only give my observations and opinions. Having accepted as 

 theories, several of the popular dogmas connected with this insect (which 

 even at first hand are vague and unscientific), in the first place I was 



