1922 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 13 



smaller in the female. The eggs of the beetles are deposited, about the end of 

 July, in the bark o f f a tree, commonly willow or oak. The long, thick, white 

 larvae require several years to reach full development. When mature they build 

 a cocoon of the chips formed in their feeding. By boring into the trunks and the 

 roots of the trees they sometimes do considerable damage. 



An explanation of their emergence from the lawn is found in the nature of 

 the soil in that part of the city. A great deal of filling in was done in that district 

 when it was opened up for building operations. Trunks of trees were no doubt 

 buried at that time and from these the bettles were emerging. 



The Stag beetles are closely related to another family, the Scarabeidae. This 

 includes two main groups, the beneficial scavenger beetles and the injurious leaf- 

 chafers. The former contains farms that have the curious habit of rolling up 

 balls of manure to provide food for their larvae. The historically interesting 

 Sacred Scarabeus may be taken as a type of this group. These beetles were 

 held in such high: veneration toy the Egyptians that paintings and carvings of 

 them are often found among the relics of this ancient people. Some of the 

 beetle models are small and made of gem stones or of gold, while others are 

 large and fashioned from less expensive materials, a granite specimen in the 

 British Museum being four feet in length. 



The June-ibugs or May-beetles, Laclmosterna fusca, are the most familiar 

 examples of the leaf-chafers. Their white larva?, often plentiful in sandy soil, 

 are very injurious to pastures, strawberry patches etc. The large, brownish black 

 adult beetles feed on the foliage of fruit trees and in some instances do ap- 

 preciable damage. 



POISONED MOLASSES FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF NOCTUID MOTHS. 

 By E. H. Strickland, Entomological Branch, Ottawa. 



The annual loss on the western prairies from the destruction of grain crops 

 by the Pale Western Cutworm (Porosagrotis orthogonia Morr.) has amounted in 

 recent years to several millions of dollars. Numerous experiments, conducted in 

 the infested provinces and states, have failed to produce an effective method of 

 controlling this pest in its larval stage. For this reason the problem of destroying 

 the adults before they have reproduced has received considerable attention. 



Three methods have presented themselves to us as a possible means of gain- 

 ing this end, namely, light-traps, molasses troughs and poisoned molasses. In 

 experimenting with these we have aimed at producing a method that will have the 

 following qualifications ; all materials used are readily procurable in any farming 

 community, very frequent attention to traps is unnecessary, and it is inexpensive 

 to operate. The employment of poisoned molasses approaches more closely to the 

 fulfillment of the conditions than does either of the other methods. 



Light-traps. 



In 1913, we placed a few light-traps in fields around Lethbridge, where an 

 outbreak of P. orthogonia had been somewhat severe. The nightly catoh never 

 exceeded 58 moths of this species, and of the total capture 97.5% were males. 

 For this reason we considered the method to be economically ineffective. In 1920, 

 Circular 94 of the Montana Experiment Station recorded a night's capture of as 

 many as 1,500 moths of this species in individual light-traps which were of a 

 superior type to that winch we had used in 1913. This year Mr. H. L. Seamans, 



