79 



The White Fringe Slug, 

 (Selandria ? sp.) 



The White Fringe tree ( GMonanthus virginicaj, in its season one of the 

 most exquisite of flowering shrubs or small trees, is subject to the an- 

 nual attack of a medium-sized, spiny slug that perforates the leaves 

 with small round holes after reducing the greater number of them to 

 mere lace-work. This species is single brooded, but the parent flies 

 appear irregularly and larvae may often be found from the latter part 

 of April until the end of May, in the interval seriously disfiguring, 

 often killing, the foliage. It lives on the under side of the leaves and 

 feeds chiefly at night. Full grown larvae from 9 to 12 mm long, 3 mm in 

 diameter across the thoracic segments, form cylindrical, nearly equal 

 throughout, or tapering slightly backward from thorax. Color green- 

 ish-white, surface very rugose, dorsum and sides quite thickly beset 

 with bifid spines, those on dorsum jet black, arising from velvety black 

 spots and being largest in the subdorsal region ; lateral spines pale. 

 Head about one-half the diameter of thorax, almost spherical, jet black, 

 immaculate. Legs, 22 in number, concolorous with general surface, 

 and unusually well developed. With me it has proved a difficult species 

 to rear, and 1 confined the larvae for several successive seasons without 

 getting a single fly, and last spring but two from a large number of 

 larvae developed. In the rearing cage, after ceasing to feed, the larvae 

 desert the leaves and wander restlessly around the cage, many of them 

 dying without entering the ground. The few that transform inclose 

 themselves in very brittle, nearly spherical cells *about an inch below 

 the surface, and as with most other saw-fly larvae that enter the ground 

 brook no disturbance during the quiescent period. The two flies that 

 1 succeeded in rearing came out about the middle of April. 



Syringing the under sides of the leaves with a strong infusion of 

 white hellebore, or with Paris green in liquid suspension, will kill the 

 pests, with but little detriment to the foliage. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE LARVA AND PUPA OF PALTH1S ANGULALIS. 



• 



Among the insects trapped last spring in loose cotton around the 

 trunks of apple trees were a considerable number of a dingy-colored 

 noctuid larva, about 1 centimeter in length by 4 mm in diameter, of nearly 

 equal width throughout, the segments appearing somewhat hunched to- 

 gether. Surface rough, of an earthy-brown color, palest on dorsum. 

 Under the lens, especially after being dropped in alcohol, a tinge of 

 green appears, and the paler cast of the dorsal surface is resolved into 

 a spreading V composed of minute white stippling. This is especially 

 pronounced on the posterior segments, where the angle of the V is de- 

 veloped into a papillate elevation. Head small, much retracted, dark 

 brown ; legs arid prolegs, and also to some extent the entire ventral sur- 

 face, verdigris green. These larvae were found from the 1st to the 5th 



