36 B. C. ENTOMOLOGICAL PROCEEDINGS, 1911. 



1. Wild crab-apple, willow, orchard-apple, cherry. 



2. Birch and plum. 



3. Alders and sometimes hazel. 



I have also seen it strip the leaves from poplars up to 40 and 50 feet 

 high. I have never seen it attack the pear or the maple. I have had a 

 number of men, both white and Indian, taking observations on this 

 point, and they will bear me out. I took a photograph of two trees 

 growing side by side, an apple completely denuded of foliage and that 

 of a pear untouched. I know I do not see eye to eye with some of our 

 Entomologists in the East, but perhaps our B. C. insects have different 

 habits from the Eastern forms. 



Much has been written and preached about the Divine given instinct 

 which teaches insects to choose for their egg-laying that plant whose 

 leaves will afford the most suitable food for the future generation. I 

 am afraid this insect has not profited by its teaching, as it often makes 

 mistakes. I have observed the egg masses laid on different plants which 

 could not by any possible chance be of any use to the young larvae. 

 For instance, I have found them on a number of deciduous plants such 

 as nettle stems, fireweed, Epilobium augustifoUum, hop vines, several 

 of the grasses, including wheat and oats, and last summer I found a 

 nest that had hatched out on the Douglas Fir. I may say that from 

 observations which I have made during the past summer and fall, that 

 with the exception of a few local spots, Nature has again reasserted 

 itself, and through the agencies of fungous and parasites we are likely 

 to be free from any serious infestation of the Tent Caterpillar for a 

 short time to come. So much, then, for the Tent Caterpillar. 



An insect which is common both to the Coast and the Dry Belt is 

 the Fall Webworm, which attacks all classes of deciduous trees and 

 shrubs. It is earlier and more virulent in its operations in the dry 

 country than it is near the coast. I have noticed it in the Dry Belt 

 as early as July, while down on the Coast district it seldom commences 

 work before September. 



What threatens to become a menace to cherry and pear groweis, 

 more especially in the dry part of the Province, is the "slug" Eriocdiii- 

 poides liinacina. I noticed this insect as early as the end of June on 

 the wild thorn in the woods and on cherry and pear in the orchards 

 around Salmon Arm, and all down the Okanagan country as far as 

 Penticton. There are two, if not three, broods in the season in the Dry 

 Belt ; on the Coast seldom more than one. The Dry Belt of the in- 

 terior seems conducive to the spread of this pest, and unless efforts are 

 put forth to combat it in the early summer it will certainh weaken 

 the tree through denuding them of their foliage. 



