ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



67 



affairs in the condition in which they find themselves placed. The ground squirrel gave 

 unmistakable evidence of being possessed of memory, which is the foundation on which 

 education is built, hence it is capable of being instructed up to the limits of its faculties. 

 How far short-lived insects that come into the world thoroughly under the control of a 

 few desires which they devote their whole time and energies to the gratification of, and 

 whose faculties at the moment of their birth are complete for all the requirements of 

 their existence, do, or can acquire further knowledge by experience for the better order- 

 ing of their lives, is a good deal of a problem yet to be solved. I am aware that there 

 is a doctrine of " cumulative mental inheritance," but into that I do not enter. A 

 peripatetic professor gave a lecture upon the "occult sciences." At least, said a reporter, 

 that is what he was advertised to lecture upon, but it is doubtful if there was one in the 

 audience that knew what he was talking about. But then, added the reporter, it is 

 doubtful if the lecturer had the slightest advantage over the audience in that respect. 



NOTES ON THE SEASON OF 1897. 



By J. Alston Moffat, London, Ont. 



The weather here during the past summer was of a decidedly unusual character 

 The spring opened finely, but May and June were uniformly cool with frequent rains, 

 vegetation progressed steadily but very slowly. July maintained its character for heat, a 

 succession of excessively hot days in it, with heavy showers throughout the month. 

 August was uniformly cool with less rain, and some lightfrosts at its close ; whilst the 

 first part of September was warm, it closed with killing frosts, and the month was exces- 

 sively dry throughout. Such conditions had a marked effect on in3ect life, retarding and 

 confusing the appearance of many species, whilst it would no doubt be the means of 

 destroying numbers of them. The ordinary cut-worm moths were present to some extent, 

 but none of them were reported here as being noticeably destructive. The army-worm 

 seems to have retired again to its usual obscurity ; but there were plenty of the moths 

 about the lights late in the season, to keep the breed alive, and be ready to produce a 

 future outbreak when the conditions are specially favorable. The frequent rains seemed 

 to have a disastrous effect upon the web- worms, as at no time during tho season were 

 their offensive-looking tents at all conspicuous. During the early part of September I 

 noticed the clover-leaf weevil, Phytonomus punctatus, Fab , in considerable numbers on 

 the streets of London, indicating that someone's clover had been suffering in this neigh- 

 borhood. Whilst on a visit to Essex, I saw in the collection of Mr. E. N. Laing a 

 Tobacco sphinx, Protoparce Carolina, Linn, which he had reared from the caterpillar, and 



as tobacco is now being grown quite com- 

 monly in that region as a regular commer- 

 cial crop, this species may yet become abun- 

 dant. In a school collection made not far 

 from London, under the superintendance of 

 the teacher, Mr. J. W. Atkinson, and 

 exhibited at the Western Fair, I saw a 

 specimen each of Megalostoma (Colias) 

 ccesonia, Stall (Fig. 39), and Terias lisa, B.L. 

 What a splendid thing it would be for our 

 country if every school teacher was an 

 interested collector in some department of 

 natural history, as his example would 

 give a respectable standing to the habit of 

 observing and taking an interest in those 

 simple objects of nature that are strewn so profusely around us, with all the educational, 

 elevating and refining influences associated with it, and which is such an inexpensive 

 means of securing untold enjoyment to those who engage in it. Natural history is 

 now being taught in our schools ; to what profit is not apparent. It is set as a task which 



