THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 137 
glass projects about a quarter of an inch above the frame, which is con- 
venient for drawing it out by. ‘The inside is then lined out with paper 
such as newspapers are printed on, a stout picture-ring is screwed into the 
side at the top, and the box hangs like a picture against the wall. 
I find that the Basswood, with a little care in putting in the pins, 
answers as well as cork; but if a softer substance is thought desirable. 
take a Basswood log and cut it into slices, about three-eighths of an inch 
thick, across the grain, making the boxes a quarter of an inch deeper and 
lining the backs with this, previously smoothed with a sharp plane. This 
is an excellent substitute ; in fact I prefer it to cork, as it is free from the 
hard nodules which often have caused me to bend a pin and spoil a 
valuable specimen, and it never corrodes the wire, which the acid 
developed in the cork often does. 
Some of my younger friends have adopted this plan, and look with 
pardonable pride on the adornment of their walls by these cases, which 
they have coloured and varnished, and which they declare are far superior 
to any pictures they could afford to buy. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
PYRRHARCTIA (Sfilosoma) IsABELLA.—Under this heading, in the 
April, 73 No. of the CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST, we have from the pen of 
Mr. Wm. Saunders, a brief history of the habits and metamorphoses of 
this insect. My experience with the larvae of this moth has been that 
some individuals at least ave somewhat particular as to their diet, many 
rejecting clover and preferring the early shoots of June grass, others per- 
sistently refusing the latter and greedily devouring the former, others still 
ignoring both in their anxiety for some possibly more palatable article of 
food. Omnivorous they certainly are, but sometimes decidedly finical. 
Mr. S. states that they are “probably subject to the attacks of ichneu- 
mons.” I have this spring bred from cocoons of Pyrrharctia Isabella two 
parasites, which have been kindly identified for me by Prof. Riley as 
Ichneumon signatipes, Cresson ; and Zrogus obsidianator, Brulle. 
