ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 65 



stirred to give it a decidedly green tinge. A spoonful of this mixture was placed at 

 intervals of six or eight feet along rows of peas, beets and carrots, which were being 

 rapidly destroyed by these cut-worms. The results were most satisfactory, the poisoned 

 bran was apparently so attractive to the caterpillars that only two or three plants were 

 afterwards cut off and the bran was eaten instead, many caterpillars being found dead near 

 the bran but some distance under the surface of the soil, where they required to be looked 

 for with some care. 



The "Black Army-worm " (Noctua fennica, Tausch) was abundant in the neighbor- 

 hood of Picton, Ont., where it did much harm to peas and other garden plants, including 

 raspberries and other small fruit. 



Squashes and cucumbers have been much injured in western Ontario by the striped 

 cucumbar beetle (Diabrotica vittata, Fab.), and the true squash bug (Anasa tristis, De 

 Geer) Fig. 67, was reported as very troublesome at Hamilton. When 

 the plants are young and small, probably the best remedy is to cover the 

 hills with a square of mosquito netting, or cheese cloth, supported by two 

 or three sticks stuck in the ground and with the edges held down with a 

 few handfuls of earth. When the plants get too large to be so confined, 

 the insects may be kept away to a measure by sprinkling over the hills 

 ashes or land plaster with which coal-oil has been mixed. Hand-picking 

 Fig 67 * ^ or ^ e Squash Bug must also be resorted to ; for this purpose shingles are 

 placed near the plants for the bugs to hide under. 



Fruits. — Fruit insects in Ontario have been decidedly less noticed during the past 

 season than for many years previous. This is probably due to the enormous crop which 

 has been reaped ; timely rains and fair weather for fruit crops seem to have prevailed 

 over the whole Province. As in the past those who sprayed carefully, obtained paying 

 returns. Although, on the whole, insect enemies have demanded less attention than 

 U3ual, it is feared that carelessness in orchard management by which defective and 

 infested fruit was left unpicked from the trees or to rot on the ground, may be followed 

 next year by a large increase in the number of injurious insects which will in all proba- 

 bility infest a much smaller crop over the whole Province. 



In western Ontario the second brood of the codling moth was particularly destruc- 

 tive. The work of the plum curculio, owing to the enormous crop of plums, was not so 

 manifest as usual, but where looked for, could usually be found, In some districts where 

 plums are not much grown, this is by far the worst enemy of the apple crop. The apple 

 curculio (Anthonomus quadrigibbus, Say.) is not a very frequent enemy of the apple in 

 Canada, seeming to confine its attacks more particularly to the fruit of the hawthorn. 

 Two new attacks upon apples of considerable interest to fruit growers have to be recorded. 

 The first of these by the caterpillar of a small moth which has not yet been bred to 

 maturity, has affected to an appreciable degree the apple crop of certain localities in 

 British Columbia, and what may possibly be the same insect has been found in a few 

 instances at Ottawa and Montreal, but the injury to the fruit was much less serious than 

 in the British Columbian apples, where the caterpillars burrowed in every direction 

 through the flesh of the apple, causing it to decay and entirely destroying it for the market. 

 The outside of the fruit was also gnarled with sunken depressions where the caterpillars had 

 entered, and in many instances, this spot was marked with a white deposit similar to birds' 

 droppings. This latter fact, however, is comparatively of small consequence, because the 

 fruit bearing these deposits, is already destroyed by the discolored burrows of the cater- 

 pillars which run in every direction through the fruit for which reason the name of "apple 

 fruit-miner " is suggested. Judging from the nature of the inj ury to the apples this 

 season, this is certainly a much more serious enemy than the larva of the codling moth, 

 and the condition of an infested apple is much more nearly like that produced by the 

 apple maggot (Trypeta pomonella, Walsh) for which indeed it was mistaken by some 

 observers, but from which it is entirely distinct. The second attack new to this country, 

 is by the true " Apple Maggot " which this year for the first time on record has infested 

 cultivated apples in Canada in the orchard of Dr. D. Young, a careful observer of insect 

 habits, living at Adolphu3town, Ont. 



5 EN. 



