Il6 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [April, 



FIELD NOTES. 



By H. Meeske, Brooklyn, N. Y. 



Telea polyphemus is double brooded on Long Island. Tolype 

 velleda I always collect on Prunus virginica. Eaclis imperialis 

 has been very plentiful for the last four years around Brooklyn, 

 and larvae destroyed the foliage of a number of maple and ever- 

 green trees of value. If I had not collected the larvae by hun- 

 dreds they would have done much damage. A dozen larvae were 

 sometimes to be found on one tree. I have seen the caterpillars 

 on trees where not a leaf was left. I have found them feeding on 

 sassafras, wild cherry, rose, oak, gum, spruce, dogwood, hickory, 

 maple, thorn {Myrica cerifera), Vidtirjium dentatum. I never 

 found them on willow or poplar trees, some of which grew in the 

 locality. They appear to eat almost everything in the line of 

 tree or shrub, and probably eat Plantanus, fruit trees, birch, elm 

 and chestnut. A friend collected 600 larvae on pine on Long 

 Island in one day. Of Chrysomela scalaris, I collected 360 speci- 

 mens in two hours from the bark of the black birch. As they 

 were mostly high up on the bark and branches, those I secured 

 were few in comparison to the numbers there. Ergates spiculates 

 I found on trunks of spruce at Hot Springs, Las Vegas, N. Mex., 

 altitude 1000 to 8000 feet. Of twelve specimens collected, two 

 were males, atheroma regalis was found by a friend feeding on 

 button-brush. I have found them on sumach, hickory, gum and 

 walnut. At least half of them were sick from the inroads of a 

 fungus. I have found E. imperialis and Thyreus abbottii affected 

 in the same way. Hemaris thysbe, common on viburnum, I 

 have often found 50 to 100 eggs on a bush. Every x versicolor 

 is said, by some one, to pupate under water. I experimented 

 with twelve larvae in 1891, and kept water in the bottom of the 

 glass jar, and as soon as they had spun the cocoon and changed 

 to pupae, I let in, gradually, more water, which softened the co- 

 coon and drowned some of my pupae, so I do not believe in that 

 method any more. Most of the eggs of this species are deposited 

 on bushes standing high and dry on the ground. On the bushes 

 on dry ground I have found as many as twenty eggs at a time, 

 and but few eggs or larvae on bushes in the water. Hyparpax 

 aurora I have seen destructive to oaks, especially the very young 

 trees. Phobetron pithecium I have found on Betula alba and B. 



