1892.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 233 



The Other case was at Niagara F'alls. Standing among the rocks, just 

 beneath Prospect Point, I saw what, from the moment's observation I 

 could give it, appeared to be Pieris rapce hover for the moment in mid 

 air then boldly dash forward and disappear in the mist and spray. I 

 watched for several minutes to see if it would again emerge from its vapor 

 bath, but watched in vain. It seemed to have deliberately committed 

 suicide. — F. M. Webster. 



Mi.MicRV IN Moths. — Round about my house is a tangled shrubbery 

 of stunted brushwood, with here and there a silver birch, young beech 

 and Scotch fir, and in one corner stands an old outhouse, where a pipe is 

 good at all seasons, says a writer in the "Nineteenth Century." It is 

 half in ruins, and while there one day I noticed that the dingy old brown 

 and gray wall was spotted with oddly-shaped blotches of a darker tint 

 that looked like damp. That same evening, however, I found that the 

 blotches had disappeared, though more rain had fallen and the roof was 

 full of holes. The next day they had all come back. When this had hap- 

 pened a second time I looked more closely at the strange marks, and. to 

 my surprise, I found them to be living creatures, small moths, in fact, with 

 folded or outspread wings, clinging fast on to the crumbling wall. From 

 dusk until dawn they had been out on the wing in the fields and woods — 

 their chief enemies, the birds, being asleep — but at daybreak came back 

 to their old place of safety. The shrubbery was dangerous because the 

 ground was thickly covered with green ivy and still greener periwinkle 

 and moss, where sparrows, finches and tits were always hunting for food, 

 and they would have been soon snapped up. On the old weather-stained 

 wall they were safe. — Public Ledger. 



R.WAGES OF White Ants.— A statement by the British Vice Consul, 

 Mr. Warburton, at La Rochelle, reminds us of the terrible ravages of the 

 Termites, known as "white ants." It appears that many of the public 

 buildings and private houses of La Rochelle are being destroyed by these 

 pests. Introduced from some tropical land about a century ago, the ants 

 had for a long time kept to a particular part of the town; but on the 

 demolition of some of the houses there, the old wood was allowed to be 

 carried away, and the insects are now found in every part of La Rochelle. 

 In many buildings it is necessary to introduce iron supports, to save them 

 from tumbling into ruins. Linnaeus spoke of these ants as "the great 

 calamity of both the Indies." Wood is their favorite diet, and the only 

 timber safe from them is teak wood ( Tectona grandis) and iron wood 

 {Sideroxyluni). They tunnel through the vastest beams of buildings in 

 every direction, leaving a thin layer untouched on the outside, and even 

 coating the outside with clay to conceal their ravages in the interior. 

 Humboldt says that in South America it is rare to find papers of any an- 

 tiquity. In one night, everything left e.xposed, even boots and shoes, 

 disappear. Ships are sometimes reduced to a condition suflficient to ac- 

 count for "foundering at sea" during a voyage. The "Albion" man-of- 

 war had to be broken up, after reaching England with difficulty, by being 



