45 



operations of different midges, each of which makes its own distinctive gall. It is very- 

 strange that such abnormal growths should result merely from the deposition, in the 

 terminal bud, of a microscopic egg by a tiny midge, yet it is the case, and on pulling one 

 of the galls to pieces we will find snugly ensconced in a cell at the base a little pink or 

 reddish maggot. The species which are the most abundant in this neighborhood are 

 Cecidomyia strobiloides, O. S. and Cecidomyia quaphaloides, Walsh. As these galls are at 

 the tips of the twigs, the growth of the shoots is stopped, and were the insects to become 

 unduly abundant they might dwarf and deform the trees, as does occasionally happen 

 when trees are growing in localities unsuited to them. 



Fortunately the larvae are not secure even in their woody dwellings, but are preyed 

 upon by many species of minute hymenoptera, known as parasites, and belonging chiefly 

 to the Chalcidida?. Several species may be bred from one gall ; indeed Walsh enumerates 

 more than twenty species of inquilines and parasites from the galls produced by C. 

 brassicoides, Walsh, a species which is very abundant in some portions of Ontario, pro- 

 ducing the cabbage-gall of the willow. 



Lepidoptera. 



This order has always been a favorite one with entomologists, as it contains the 

 most beautiful of all insects ; the butterflies and moths. The former are diurnal insects, 

 that is, they appear during the daytime, rejoicing in the sunlight, and floating to and fro 

 on gaily painted wing from flower to flower, the most brilliant or lovely of which cannot 

 match in richness of colour, and exquisite markings, the painted wings of their nectar- 

 seeking visitors. The moths are much more numerous as regards species, and some of 

 them are so large and magnificent, as to be deemed worthy of such titles as Imperial and 

 Regal, yet as they are chiefly crepuscular or nocturnal in their movements, they are not 

 so well known to those who have not studied insect life. 



Of about seventy-five species of Lepidoptera, of which I have records, as feeding 

 more or less upon willows, only eight are butterflies. The only one of these which is 

 ever found in much abundance is Vanessa Antiopa, L., the Camberwell Beauty. This 

 butterfly hibernates during the winter, and is one of the first insects to be seen on the 

 return of spring, flitting about in sunny glades or hovering around the tapped sugar 

 maples. The female then lays its eggs in a cluster, around the small stem of a willow, 

 the caterpillars from which feed in company upon the foliage, and from their numbers 

 and voracious appetites they rapidly defoliate the plant. The full-grown larva measures 

 from one and three-quarters to two inches in length, and is black, sprinkled with minute 

 white dots ; with a row of eight dark brick-red spots on the back, and beset with num- 

 erous black branching species. The caterpillar changes to a dark-brown chrysalis, sus- 





Fig 



pended by the tip under some sheltering projection, and the butterfly appears about 

 August. As this species also attacks the elm and other trees, it might be a most injuri- 

 ous insect if it were not subject to the attack of a minute parasite, which sometimes 

 destroys nearly every chrysalis, and which is so prolific that I have counted more than 



