247 



Mr. Gillette thought that the characters of the anal plates relied 

 upon by Mr. Hart should be figured when the paper is published. He 

 has found wire- worms predaceous on the potato stalk weevil. 



Mr. Bruner had taken several different forms of wire-worms out of 

 rotten wood at West Point, Nebr. He has also found them killed by 

 the white grub fungus, Cordiceps. 



Mr. Fletcher presented the following : 



NOTES UPON INJURIOUS INSECTS OF THE YEAR IN CANADA. 

 By James Fletcher. 



[Author's abstract.] 



Cutworms of various kinds had been locally abundant. Agrotis turris 

 had been destructive in gardens to flowers and vegetables. Radena 

 arctica and H. devastatrix had injured fall wheat and grasses in the 

 spring. He was more than ever in favor of the poisoned trap remedy 

 for cutworms. The caterpillar of Pieris rapce had been very trouble- 

 some but was easily destroyed with pyrethrum powder diluted with 

 four times its quantity of common flour or slacked lime. Plutella cru- 

 ciferarum had also done much harm to cabbages in the northwest ter- 

 ritories and in British Columbia. This had been much more difficult 

 to destroy with pyrethrum than the last named. The cabbage-root 

 maggot had attacked cabbages severely ; but had been successfully 

 destroyed by sj^inging about half a cupful of hellebore tea round each 

 root and then hoeing the soil well up round the stem. He had made 

 some interesting studies of the Hessian fly, which agreed in the main 

 with those published by Prof. Forbes in a recent bulletin. Spring 

 wheat, sown in the end of April, had been attacked at Ottawa at the 

 root in the same way as wheat is injured by the autumn brood. From 

 these same wheat plants he had bred the Hessian fly, the wheat-bulb 

 worm, and Oscinis variabilis. Insects injurious to fruit trees had been 

 represented by the plum curculio, the codling moth, the leaf roller of 

 the apple, and the cankerworm. All of these had been successfully 

 treated with Paris green. 



Some observations on forest insects had shown him that the large 

 cerambycid larvae from eggs laid early in the season produced the per- 

 fect insects the next year; but those laid late passed two years before 

 coming to maturity. He had taken a female of Monohammus confusor 

 with the abdomen filled with eggs as late as the middle of September. 

 The attacks of Xematus erichsonii on larches in the Provinces of Quebec 

 and New Brunswick were described. 



Mr. Webster asked whether Mr. Fletcher had ever seen the larva of 

 Agrotis fennica feeding on grains ? 



Mr. Fletcher replied that it feeds primarily on clover: but when oc- 

 curring in numbers is almost omnivorous ; asparagus beds, raspberries 



