ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL 

 SOCIETY OF ONTARIO, 1897. 



The thirty-fifth annual meeting of the Entomological Society of Ontario was held 

 in its new room in the Young Men's Christian Association Building, Wellington Street, 

 London, on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 12th and 13th, 1897, the President, Mr. 

 J. W. Dearness, of London, occupying the Chair. 



The meeting was called to order at 2 30 p.m., on Tuesday, when the following mem- 

 . bers were present : Dr. James Fletcher and Mr. W. H. Harrington, Ottawa ; Mr. H. H. 

 Lyman, Montreal; Rev, T. W. Fyies, Quebec ; Mr. J. D. Evans, Trenton ; Rev. 0. J. 

 S Bethune, Port Hope ; Mr. T. Hart, Woodstock ; Messrs. W. E. Saunders (Secretary), 

 J. A. Balkwill, (Treasurer), J. A. Moffat (Curator), J. H. Bowman, C. D. Anderson, and 

 J. Law, London. 



Letters of apology were read from Prof. Panton, of Guelph, who had been seriously 

 ill for some weeks, and Mr. Arthur Gibson, of Toronto, regretting their inability to 

 attend. The Chairman also reported that Mr. A.. H. Kilman, of Ridgeway, one of the 

 Directors of the Society, was ill in a hospital at Buffalo, NY. 



The first paper was read by the Eev. T. W. Fyles on "An Arctian Larva — What 

 is it 1 " and was illustrated by specimens of the moth from which the eggs were obtained 

 and of some varieties of Hyphantria cunea. Dr. Fletcher, in commenting on the paper, 

 said that Dr. Riley, in the Report of the Entomological Commission on Forest Insects, 

 page 246, had figured ten varieties of this moth ranging from -the common pure white, 

 immaculate form to one profusely dotted with black and brown, and expressed his 

 belief, iounded upon the frequent breeding of specimens, that these are all varieties of 

 one species, which should be known by Drury's name of H. cunea rather than //. textor, 

 Harris. 



Mr. Lyman said that this was an opposite case to that of Euchmies ooilaris and 

 eale, which were supposed for a long time to be the same, but were found by breeding 

 to be different specie s 



Mr. Lyman read a paper by Mr. Winn and himself entitled <s Notes on Grapta 

 Interrogationis," which will be published in the December number of " The Canadian 

 Entomologist" This butterfly was very abundant about Montreal and other parts of 

 the Province of Quebec during the season of 1896. Advantage was taken of this abun- 

 dance by the authors of the paper to rear the insect from egg to imago in considerable 

 numbers and in this way to settle some doubtful points in its life history. They 

 described the various incidents that related to the rearing, egg-laying, duration of moults 

 and of larval and pupal stages, emergence of the imago, etc. The larvae were fed on 

 elm and hop, in confinement and out-of-doors, and many in their natural condition were 

 found to be severely parasitized Out of one batch of 101 eggs laid by a single fern tie, 

 Mr. Lyman made a microscopical examination of fifty two, and found that of these 

 thirty-one had nine ribs and twenty-one had ten. This year (1897) only one specimen 

 of the butterfly was seen by Mr. Winn. 



Mr. Fyles spoke of the former rarity of this butterfly in the Province of Quebec, 

 and how for a few years it became fairly common, culminating in the remarkable abun- 

 dance during 1896 



Dr. Fletcher drew attention to the fact observed by Mr, Lyman that the eggs laid 

 by a single female had a variation in the number of ribs, though Mr. Scudder had 

 supposed that each female wo aid lay eggs with the same number of ribs, the number 

 possibly varying with different individuals. The ordinary food plmt is the elm, but it 

 feeds also on nettle as well as hop. He found that the butterflies of the Vanessa group 

 were very variable as regards the number of individuals from year to year. Some- 

 times V. Antiopa was so abundant on the young elms at the Ottawa Experimental Farm 

 that the larvae had to be destroyed in order to save the trees. 



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