60 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



Fig. 59. 



caterpillars of this insect. There was hardly a county in the Province where it was not 

 reported either as a caterpilar attacking crops or as a moth which had drawn attention 



by its excfssive numbers. This pest has been treated at 

 length by Prof. Panton in the present report, so need not 

 be mentioned further here, except to draw the attention of 

 those interested to the excellent bulletin lately issued by 

 Prof. Clarence M. Weed of the New Hampshire Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station. It is interesting to learn from 

 this bulletin that in 1770 in the celebrated occurrence of 

 the army worm in New Hampshire, the same remedus 

 which we most rely on to-day, namfly, trenching around 

 fields infested and destroying the caterpillars in pits dug at 

 intervals in the trenches were practised by the farmers of 

 that State. As is almost invariably the case, the super- 

 abundance of the army-worm this year was much reduced 

 by the natural enemies which always prey upon this species. 



At the late meeting of the Association of Economic 

 Entomologists held at Buffalo, N.Y., Dr. J. B. Smith seated 

 that the army-worm had appeared in New Jersey in some numbers, but only in isolated 

 localities. In Canada, in almost every instance where invasions of this insect have been 

 recorded, the injury has been done by a brood which appears in the larval form during 

 the month of July and in the beginning of August ; but Dr. Smith stated that it was not 

 always the same brood which did the damage in New Jersey The first brood seemed to 

 be the injurious one in a southern county of the State, reports having been received as 

 early as May. At other localities in the State injury was noted in Juiy and as late as 

 early in August. This is practically the same as is the case in some of our northern 

 counties of Ontario The most interesting record, however, is given by Mr. A. H. Kirk- 

 land, of the Massachusetts Gypsy Moth Commission, who stated that "the army-worm 

 had been seriously injurious in many parts of Massachusetts and had damaged a large 

 portion of the cranberry crop. He writes Sept. 3 that at Hingham, Mass , a third brood 

 of army-worms was then threatening to be as destructive as any that preceded it. He 

 found them at that time of all stages from quite young to nearly mature." (Entomological 

 News, VII, 1896, p. 310.) 



Fodder crops. Early in the season grasshoppers of the three common species, the Red- 

 legged locust, fig. 60, the Two-striped locust, and the Lesser Migratory locust, were noticed 

 to be remarkably abundant throughout Ontario and Quebec and in parts of Nova Scotis. 

 These species are always somewhat prevalent, but great anxitty was felt in June last 

 when their ravages were seen in pastures and hay fields. Clover was badly eaten in 

 some districts early in the month and also wheat, oats and barley. Later in the summer 

 corn, beans, turnips, and even hops were attacked. There was every appearance in 

 July that the losses would even exceed those of 1895, but early in August it was 

 clear that for some reason the grasshoppers were much less numerous than they had 

 been. Several correspondents made the same report, and a few of them observed 

 that parasites were waging an effective warfare against 

 the locust tribes. Doubtless the sudden disappearance of 

 these pests was due to the great increase of four of their 

 natural enemies. One of these is a fungous disease (Empusa 

 grylli [Fresenius] Nowakowski), which causes its victims to 

 crawl up to the tops of stalks of grasses and other plants, 

 where, grasping the stem firmly with their legs they die 



and their bodies become rapidly filled with a dry, mealy substance, which is really 

 myriads of the spores of the parasitic fungus. The body of the locust soon dries up and 

 the spores are distributed by the wind, each mummified carcass thus becoming a source of 

 infection to all other locusts which come near it. In addition to the above fungus three 

 other parasites — insects — were unusually abundant. One of these was a Tachina fly, fig 61, 

 which was described as following the locusts closely and darting down, laying its white 



