60 



immaculate. Surface finely wrinkled transversely, but without pilifer- 

 ous warts or pubescence. Head small, round, amber-yellow with dark- 

 brown, triangular or Y-shaped spot on each side. Anal plate orbicular, 

 slate-gray. Thoracic legs same color as general surface ; prolegs im- 

 perfectly developed. It bores from the tips of the shoots downward 

 for an inch and a half or two inches, devouring everything but the 

 cuticle and packing the frass at the upper end. When full grown it 

 makes its exit through a round hole which it cuts at the lower end of 

 its burrow, and, entering the earth, incloses itself in a tough, silken 

 cocoon, in which it remains dormant until the following spring. The 

 single fly which I have thus far succeeded in rearing issued in May, and 

 is of the same size and very similar in appearance to the common Eose 

 Slug fly (Selandria roscc). Professor Eiley says of it that "it appears 

 to belong to the genus Ardis of the Selandriida\" 



Climbing Cutworms were a prominent feature of the entomological 

 developments of the spring. These attacked the Oaks, Elms, and other 

 shade trees, as well as Apple, Pear, and Cherry trees and a variet}' of 

 vines and shrubs. Among the species detected in their work of de- 

 struction were Agrotis saucia, A. scandens, A. alternata and Homoliadena 

 badistriga. The grass under shade and fruit trees would often in the 

 morning be thickly strewn with leaves and buds that had been severed 

 during the night. This was especially noticeable under the various 

 Oaks and Sweet Cherries. On a large, isolated specimen of the latter, 

 up which a Trumpet xlue had climbed, I took early in May a great 

 number of the larva? of Agrotis alternata. These mottled gray worms 

 were found during the day extended longitudinally on the trunk, closely 

 appressed to the stems of the Trumpet vine, where, protected by their 

 imitative coloring, it would be impossible for an unpracticed eye to de- 

 tect them and where even birds failed to find them. When ready to 

 transform they descended to the earth and inclosed themselves in an 

 ample, tough, dingy- white cocoon, under any slight protection that 

 might be convenient. I also took this species from crevices of oak- 

 bark and occasionally found one feeding in a rose. 



Canker Worm (Anisopteri/xvernata^eak). — ^Sotfor several years has 

 this pest appeared in such numbers in the orchards of this locality 

 as during the past spring, isor did the apple trees seem to recover 

 from the excessive defoliation during the remainder of the season. The 

 worms were especially numerous on trees around which the soil had 

 not been stirred for a year or more. 



I noted this year a habit of this insect that has not, to my knowl- 

 edge, been previously recorded, viz, that the worms, with great regu- 

 larity, desert the leaves during the middle of the day and hide in the 

 forks of the branches and on the trunk in crevices and under loose 

 scales of the bark. As I did not at once discover this propensity in 

 these larva?, it puzzled me for some time to account for their scarceness 



