IS 



"While collecting moths at sugar early in the season I observed one evening about nine 

 o'clock among the insects which came to sip the sweets two specimens of the plum cur- 

 culio. I captured one of them, the other fell to the ground before I could secure it. 

 Experiments made by me some years ago proved that this insect is active at night as well 

 fts in daylight, but this is the only instance I have known of its being attracted to sugar 

 at night. 



From one locality complaints reached me about the middle of June last of the abund- 

 ance of a spiny caterpillar feeding on currant bushes, which my correspondent supposed to 

 be a new currant worm. Specimens were forwarded and proved to be the caterpillar of 

 the gray comma butterfly, Grapta progne. This insect may be found almost every season 

 m limited numbers on the wild gooseberry and currant bushes in open woods, and occa- 

 sionally on the cultivated varieties, but this is the first instance to my knowledge where 

 the insect has appeared in sufficient numbers to cause injury. They are so very subject 

 to parasites that it is not at all likely they will ever prove generally destructive ; syringing 

 the bushes with Paris green and water or dusting the foliage with powdered hellebore 

 will soon make an end of them. 



In the neighbourhood of Drummondv'lle several acres of red raspberries were stripped 

 of their foliage by the larva of the raspberry saw-fly, Selandria rubi ; reports of injury 

 from this pest have also been received from several other localities. It is a green worm 

 which is so exactly of the colour of the young foliage it feeds on that it frequently escapes 

 detection. When examined, this larva is found to much resemble that well known pest, 

 the currant worm, but it has no black dots. If allowed to pursue their course they soon 

 riddle the leaves, leaving little more than a net-work of the coarser veins. An applica- 

 tion of hellebore mixed with water in the proportion of an ounce of the powder to a 

 pailful of water speedily destroys them. 



A new clover insect has recently invaded our Province which promises to be trouble- 

 some. It is a small curculio known to entomologists as the punctured clover leaf weevil, 

 Phytonomus punctatus. It is said to have been introduced from Europe within the past 

 few years. The late Dr. LeConte, in a work published in 1876, reports having received 

 one specimen from Canada ; but at that time nothing seemed to have been known of its 

 habits. In 1881, Prof. Riley published in the American Naturalist an account of the 

 injury done to clover fields in Yates county. New York, by this insect; in one instance in 

 a patch of two aores scarcely a whole leaf remained. The beetle is about two-fifths of 

 an inch long, of a dark-brown colour, marked with dull yellow, and has its wing cases 

 (hickly punctured. Each female is said to deposit from 200 to 300 eggs, which are some- 

 times laid on the surface of the leaf stem, but more frequently thrust into the interior of 

 the older stems. The young larva? may be found as early as in May, but being small 

 they do not usually attract notice until almost a month later. At first they feed among 

 the folded young leaves or attached to the under side of a leaf. When approaching full 

 growth, they feed chiefly on the margins of the leaves, into which they eat ii regular holes. 

 At this period they are not easily seen as they relax their hold and drop suddenly to the 

 ground when approached; moreover, they feed chiefly during the night and hide in the 

 day-time among the roots and stalks of the plants. When full grown the larva spins a 

 small cocoon, which is usually placed a little below the surface of the ground, in which it 

 changes to a chrysalis ; about three weeks later the beetle escapes. From observations 

 which have been made on this insect at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, 

 the average period required from the time of the depositing of the egg to the escape of the 

 mature beetle, is three and one third months, hence in most localities there will be two 

 broods during the summer. Mr. A. H. Kilman, one of our members, residing in Eidge- 

 way, was the first to report the occurrence of this pest in Ontario, which he says was 

 watted to our shores by prevailing east winds about the 10th of August last. On this 

 date the beetles appeared on the opposite side of Lake Erie, in Buffalo, in such multitudes 

 that thousands of them were crushed on the pavements by the feet of passers-by. Mr. 

 Xilman says " I picked them from the fences and sidewalks, and found them in the grass 

 in my lawn : I am of opinion that they will go into winter quarters h< re, and open up a 

 lively campaign in the spring. Whatever the sequel may show, I fear that these in\aders 

 •will "prove of better staying qualities than those who crossed the border in '66 and turned 



