33 



weather having become milder, I searched for it and found it where I had laid it, still 

 on its side with the legs drawn in. But on touching it, the wings suddenly unclosed, the 

 insect took to flight, and, the window being open, it escaped into the winter sunshine. 

 Some years after I found three or four specimens of Pyrameis Atalanta under the same 

 circumstances, all close together, hanging to a rough rafter and perfectly torpid. On 

 being placed in a warm room they revived in a short time and 1 allowed them to escape. 

 As early as warm February days I have met the Camberwell Beauty and Admiral, in 

 solitary state, on the wing. The south side of Staten Island soon gets warmed by the 

 spring sun, and is a good collecting field for the entomologist. 



THE WHITE MARKED TUSSOCK MOTH, (Orgyia Leucostigma). Smith. 

 By Frederick Clarkson, New York City. 



The foliage of the trees in this city is undergoing spoliation bv the larvae of this 

 moth. Many of the trees are entirely denuded of their leaves, particularly the silver- 

 leaf poplar, the ailanthus alone escaping attack. The writer suggested to the authori- 

 ties last spring that hand-picking of such cocoons as contained the deposit of ova was the 

 only sure way of exterminating these insects. Had such service been rendered the trees 

 at that time, this damaging visitation would have been prevented. There is good reason 

 to believe, however, that what the authorities have failed to do, a young army of para- 

 sites, " Pimpla," which have put in an appearance during the last fortnight, are now 

 actively attempting, and we shall probably be rid of this moth another year. The ova 

 commenced to hatch out about the 25th of May, and the larvae began to assume the pupa 

 form about the 21st of June; ten days thereafter the imago was discovered depositing 

 ova. Out of twelve cocoons gathered on the 15th of July, four yielded the parasite 

 already referred to. I would note here in connection with this parasite a circumstance 

 very commonly observed among the lepidoptera. I discovered two <^ parasites upon a 

 cocoon containing the pupa of this moth. I drove them away several times, but they as 

 frequently returned. I finally captured them, and placed them together with the cocoon 

 in my collecting bottle. Before I had returned to my residence a ? Pimpla had emerged 

 from the cocoon and was busily employed in expanding her wings. I also noticed that 

 this parasite deposits its ova through the cocoon on to the pupa, and that in every case 

 that came under my observation the pupa selected was the 9, doubtless from the fact 

 that its plump condition provides the necessary food for the development of the parasite,, 

 which the pupa of the moth could not furnish. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES FOR 1882. 

 By Prof. E. W. Claypole, New Bloomfield, Pa. 



My removal from Yellow Springs, Ohio, to New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, has had 

 the effect of breaking off the line of my entomological work, or at least throwing it into 

 a rather different channel. Among the first results is a notice of the striking difference 

 between the two places in regard to insect depredations^ In my experience last year a 

 great part of the time was occupied with fighting insects. The cherry weevil, the potato 

 worm and beetle, and the apple worm were the ringleaders ; but after them came the 

 blister beetles, the turnip flea, the corn worm, the squash bug, et multa alea. Here, at 

 least during the present, or rather past season, the ravages of all these have been quite 

 insignificant. Foremost stands the potato beetle. As soon as the young plants came 

 up I followed my usual plan of picking them off and dropping them into a tin having a 

 few spoonfuls of coal oil at the bottom. By this means they cause no trouble in crawling 

 out again. Though the season was rainy, and therefore the opposite of the last, yet I 



