84 EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



last spring. It had previously been noticed, but has evidently 

 become mnch more abundant during the last year or two. 



A specimen of the roach Panchlora hyalina Sauss. wsls taken 

 near Amherst in a field at least half a mile from the nearest 

 store. It is of course to be presumed that it came in on some 

 tropical fruit, but it is evidently liable to fly some distance, and 

 may therefore be met with almost anywhere. 



During June the members of an elementary class in ento- 

 mology at the college, interested in collecting insects, obtained 

 a trolley car headlight with the requisite apparatus, and took 

 it to a point where the local car line passes through a densely 

 wooded area. There they established connections with the feed 

 wire of the line and used the headlight to attract insects. The 

 resulting catch included about twenty lunas, several pohjphemus 

 and io moths, besides a large number of smaller Lepidoptera, 

 in a little over an hour. Several trials of this method gave 

 extremely good results, and suggest the possibility of using 

 electricity at places where moths are most abundant when 

 trolley lines are properly located for this purpose. 



On the 5th, 10th and 23d of June blister beetles were re- 

 ceived from correspondents in Stoekbridge and Williamstown 

 which were evidently of the genus Po7nphopoea, and which 

 were kindly identified by Mr. Charles Schaeffer of the Brook- 

 lyn Museum as Pomphopoea sayi Lee. This insect has never 

 before been received by the experiment station, and the data 

 sent with the insects were of such interest as to be worthy 

 of record. The Williamstown correspondent, under date of 

 June 5, writes : " On the mountain ash tree where they were 

 found there were about a quart." One of the Stoekbridge 

 correspondents wrote, June 10: — 



Yesterday morning on entering my garden I found that these beetles 

 had taken possession of the place. Every flower stalk had been eaten 

 down and the iris and roses were fast being devoured. Lupins seemed 

 to be the favorite and not one was left. The beetles seem to be drunk 

 with the nectar, for they stuck to the flowers and we could easily cut 

 the stalk and drop it in a pail of kerosene. We caught hundreds in 

 this way. Later, in the afternoon, they seemed to have taken flight. 

 There Avas a flight of about 300 on June 12, eating lupin, roses, syriugas, 



