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New fruit pests, — Some new enemies of fruits, perhaps of only 

 minor importance, but worthy of mention here, are the following: 



The blackberry soft scale (Mdecanium fitchi Sign.) and the rose 

 scale (Aulacaspis rosae Bouche) appeared in injurious numbers in sev- 

 eral localities in western Ontario in blackberry plantations. 



A noetuid (Scopelosoma tristigmata Grote) and a geometer (Mesolt uea 

 truncata Hufn.) were sent in from Vancouver Island as having done 

 harm in strawberry beds. 



A single specimen (the first recorded) of the brown-tailed moth 

 (Ev/proctis chrysorrJuBa L. ) was caught at light in St. John. New Bruns- 

 wick. I do not think that this means that the insect has spread to New 

 Brunswick from Massachusetts, but rather that a moth or the pupa 

 was brought direct from Boston on one of the many passenger ships 

 plying regularly from that port to St. John. It indicates, however. 

 how easily this or any other insect might be spread to a new locality. 



Of rather more importance than the above-mentioned is a new injury 

 reported this season from several places in western Ontario and 

 observed in a few cases last year at Ottawa, by the larva 1 of the sawfly 

 (Taxon us n igrisoma Nort). These larvae are frequently found in autumn 

 on different kinds of Rumex and Polygonum, of which they reduce 

 the leaves to a skeleton. The injury to apples is done by the green 

 larva 1 boring into the fruit in autumn. From the appearance of the 

 burrows, which run in for about half an inch into the flesh of the 

 apple and which contain no black excrement. I am led to hope that 

 this is merely an accidental injury, the larvae merely boring into 

 apples as they might into any soft, firm substance, in which to exca- 

 vate their winter quarters. The usual habit is for the larva 1 to bore 

 into the pithy stems of herbaceous plants. L have no record of the 

 larva? attacking the leaves of apple trees, but Professor Lochhead. of 

 Guelph. saw these larva 1 climbing up the trunks of apple trees in 

 October. The injury to fruit was, however, of rather a serious nature, 

 tne apples being much disfigured, and in many instances they were 

 rendered unfit for market and had to be fed to pigs. Should this 

 sawfly larva become a regular enemy of the apple, a remedy which 

 suggests itself is the destruction of all weeds growing near the trees 

 which belong to the dock or smart- weed family. 



FOREST [NSECTS. 



The birch skeletonizer {JBuccvlatrix canadensiseUa Chamb.). The 



birches, particularly the white birches, throughout the greater part o( 

 Canada east of the prairie provinces have been greatly disfigured 

 during the past two seasons by the small larva 1 o\' this tineid. Owing 

 to the cool, damp season of L902, the attack was not apparent until a 

 fortnight later than in 1901, and it is hoped that the ultimate effect on 



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