1899] ENTOMOLOGICAL. NEWS. 263 



egg clusters left by the female. I only saw one living larva, 

 and he did not come from a cocoon. 



EespectfiiUy yours, E. J. Smith. 



Every lover of Boston Common has reason for alarm and right- 

 eous indignation. Its trees, especially the American elms and lin- 

 dens, are literally covered with cocoons, each containing a well- 

 developed caterpillar, almost ready to begin his career of devasta- 

 tion. There are not simply tens of thousands of the voi'acious 

 pests— there are millions of them There are thousands on indi- 

 vidual trees- Caterpillai"8 are already to be seen crawling upon the 

 trunks. The ends of branches are already eaten bare of leaves- 

 Have we money to expend for the extei'mi nation of the English 

 sparrow, whom everybody allows does occasionally at least attack 

 a caterpillar, and none to spend tor the destruction of the crawling 

 nuisance itself? Are there thousands of dollars for artistic flower 

 beds in the public garden, and nothing available for the glorious 

 trees of Boston Common ? It is said that a whitewash of lime will 

 instantly destroy the cocoons. Men should today begin this work 

 and hasten it with every possible means. It should have been done 

 weeks ago. 



o 



Prof. Snyder and I had another jaunt upiCity Creek canon before 

 he left here and we caught some few things more. Thecla chrysa- 

 lus was just coming out and we took a few fine specimens- !?=peaking 

 of this species, I visited one ;of the canons about twenty miles 

 north of this city August 27th, where 1 found it by the thousand, 

 but as it was so late in the season they were all worn, and after 

 catching two or three dozen of them and finding none that were 

 good enough to keep, I ceased molesting them. Also took at the 

 same time a rather poor specimen of Pamphila scuddei^i The 

 latter part of our summer, i. e., since about August 1st, the weather 

 has been so cool and autumnal in its character, and the warm 

 weather was so late coming, that it ha.s made the season seem so re- 

 markably short. But the past three weeks have been remarkable in 

 the unusual appearance of the large, brightly silvered form of A)— 

 gynm's snydert, the one with the bright red on the lower side of the 

 secondary wings. During previous years I have never found but 

 two specimens of Argynnis in Salt Lake Valley ; that is, outside of 

 the canons, and those two were seen last year. Within the past few 

 days, however, there have been dozens of snyderi flying about the 

 streets, even to the centre of the business portion of the town. 

 These were nearly all apparently good clean specimens, and all of 

 the large form But one seldom has a net handy for such unex- 

 pected things, and I only succeeded in taking two specimens of 

 them. I suspect that this species has established itself on the garden 

 violet in our city. Prof. Snyder has written me that he found this 

 form just emerging in the mountains east of Ogden about the last 

 of Jul v.— G Weslky Browning, Salt Lake Citv. Utah. 



