ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 59 



orders, and families, and gives brief descriptions and engravings of nearly all the com- 

 monly occurring insects. Price, $3.75. 



3. Prof. Pan ton's Insect Foes (30c.) i8 a very convenient book for the busy man who 

 would like to know the most injurious insects and the methods used in destroying them, 



4. Insecta, by Hyatt & Arms, is a very neat and interesting book for beginners, and 

 pays much attention to the anatomy of types from each of the orders. Price, $1.25. 



5. Scudder's Guide to Butter/lies and Life of a Butterfly are very useful books. The 

 former pays much attention to identification of larvae. Price, $1 50. Also Dr. Holland's 

 Butterfly Book, with 48 coloured plates. Prioe, only $3.00. 



6. Other special works are : Williston's Diptera, $2,25 ; Cresson's Hymenoptera, 

 $3.00; Leconte fy Horn's Coleoptera, $2.50; and Banks 3 Neuropteroid Insects, 50 cents ; 

 and Packard's Works. 



7. In Economic Entomology there are Saundertt's Classic Work, Insects Injurious to 

 Fruits, price, $2.00 ; Harris' Insects Injurious to Vegetation ; Smith's Economic Entomol- 

 ogy, price, $2.50; Weed's Insects and Insecticides, price, $1.50, 



8. Last, but not least in importance, are the Annual Reports of our own Entomo- 

 logical Society, in which will be found splendid accounts of the injurious insects 

 from year to year. Every teacher should subscribe for the Canadian Entomologist,, 

 $1 00 a year ; for in doing so he would get twelve monthly numbers of the Magazine 

 and a copy of the Annual Report of the Society's Proceedings. 



TWO AVIAN PAKASITES: NOTES ON THEIR METAMORPHOSES. 



By R. Elliott, Bryanston, Ont. 



In the month of April, 1897, I noticed among the feathers of a Broad-winged Hawk 

 which I was making up as an ornithological specimen several examples of a medium- 

 sized fly that, judging from its peculiar structure, the faculty it possessed of passing 

 rapidly through and hiding among the feathers, its reluctance to leave although provided 

 with well-developed wings, must be a parasite, alive and well and quite at home. 



Looking at a species of the highly organized order Diptera, in which the meta- 

 morphosis is complete, my first surprise at seeing the insect there soon merged into 

 the second wonder : If the parasite remains for life on the host, and the metamorphosis 

 is complete, in what manner is the routine of reproduction carried on 1 One could easily 

 imagine eggs deposited on the feathers, an excellent environment to ensure development. 

 But then, what would become of the larva ? One could scarcely conceive of a maggot as 

 living on the exterior of a living bird. 



[In a Catalogue of Insects, under the family Hippoboscidae, I found Ol/ersia 

 Americana Leach noted thus : — " Lives on Bubo virginianus and Buteo borealis."] 



As the Broad- winged Hawk is a near relative of the last-named, is in fact Buteo 

 latissimus, I assumed that I had found the name of the insect. 



In September of this year, while manipulating a White-throated Sparrow for the 

 same purpose as my hawk, I found another parasite fly, possibly of the same family, 

 but of a different species from the first-named. It measured about five millimeters in 

 length, with wings nearly, if not quite, as long as head and body, The thorax was 

 flat and smooth ; the skin leathery and tough ; the legs (a light olive-green) long and 



