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a large pocket, and saves the inconvenience of unbuttoning your coat when perhaps the 

 thermometer is below zero. The hook on the stick is useful for pulling down boughs or 

 pulling yourself out of a hole ; the spike for prying off pieces of bark or digging into old 

 stumps. 



Objects of great interest, some of which can be better collected, and from which the 

 insects can be more successfully bred when collected in the winter time, are the various 

 kind of plant galls. These require little trouble ; all that is necessary is to put 

 them away in glass jars and keep them closed. After a time the occupants begin 

 to emerge, and to the surprise of the uninitiated, although each kind is made by only 

 one kind of insect, from the galls will be produced perhaps half a dozen distinct species. 

 These are most of them parasites upon the gall-maker, or what are known as the 

 inquilines or guest flies. The gall-maker produces the gall upon the plant. In this gall 

 some of these guest flies deposit their eggs, and the young grubs feed upon the substance 

 of the gall, or others again live as parasites, either upon the grubs of the gall-makers or 

 their guests. Watching these as they emerge, and making notes upon them, will be found 

 most entertaining at a time of the year when there is little active life out of doors. A 

 further zest is added to this department of study from the fact that so little has been 

 done in this line that many of the flies so bred will be new to science. 



Other places which may be visited in the winter are groves of evergreens, where 

 much will be found to repay the collector. Amongst the leaves of the pines are cases of 

 larva?, and on the leaves themselves are the burrows of the caterpillars of a tiny moth. 

 Beneath the bark are numerous scolytid bark-borers, and from the solid wood beneath 

 may be extracted the large grub of the timber-borers. To obtain these last, however, an 

 axe will be found necessary. In the garden the horticulturist will find plenty of work 

 with which to occupy himself profitably. The egg mosses of the tent caterpillar should 

 now be collected and destroyed, as well as those of the tussock moths. Clusters of dead 

 leaves should be removed trom apple trees, and thin stems cleared of the scales of the 

 oystershell bark-louse and other small insects which winter in rough places on the bark 

 or amongst the buds. 



In addition to the above work out of doors, much is to be done during the winter to 

 prepare for the work of the coming season. Apparatus and storing boxes for specimens 

 should be prepared well beforehand, or perhaps when the time comes to use them oppor- 

 tunities will be lost. Some simple elementary book should be procured and read at 

 leisure. In our library at London we have for the use of our members, many books of 

 this nature, which can be borrowed by applying to the librarian. We should recommend 

 to- beginners, Kirby it Spence's Entomology, Packard's Entomology for Beginners, and 

 Comstock's Introduction to Entomology. 



THE APPLE TREE TENT CATERPILLAR. THE AMERICAN LACKEY MOTH. 

 (Clisiocampa Americana, Har.) 



There are two kinds of caterpillars which every year commit serious depredations 

 in our Canadian apple orchards, although they by no means confine their attentions to 

 that tree. These are the larvae of the American and Forest Lackey moths, two species 

 of brown moths which frequently fly into houses at night during July, and draw atten- 

 tion by their headlong, reckless flight, dashing themselves against the ceiling and the 

 walls and very often finishing up by getting into the lamp chimney. Speaking generally, 

 there is a great resemblance between these two insects in appearance and habits, and 

 the same remedies are applicable for both. When examined carefully, however, they 

 differ considerably in all their stages, and may be easily recognised. 



They belong to the Bombycvlce or Spinners, a family which contains the silk worm 

 moths and several other thick-bodied hairy moths, with large wings but small heads, 

 bearing pectinated antenna?, and having the mouth parts imperfect, or as in those now 

 under consideration not developed at all. The caterpillars of the Bombycidce are usually 

 hairy or tufted, and when full grown spin a coeoon for the protection of the short thick 

 chrysalids. 



