30 



every direction around the city. One day, coming on a favourable locality, I took 19 ; 

 returning to the same place the following afternoon, I got 30, and had to leave before 4 

 o'clock on account of rain — going back a few days later and securing 34. I found old 

 bushes in an exposed situation the most productive. 



Fapilio Cresj^hontes. — On the 6th Oct., 1880, I took six c7'esphontes larvae feeding on 

 prickly ash. Some of them fed for several days afterwards, and in due time they all 

 transformed to chrysalids. Now they have all emerged as butterflies ; the first appeared 

 on the 22nd of March, the last on the 17th of April, 1881. They measure from 3 J to 

 4 J inches in expanse of wing, perfect in form and rich in colouring. 



Heliothis Armigera Huh. — It seems rather strange that this, so common an insect in 

 many parts, should have been but noticed here for the first time this season. Widespread 

 in the range of its habitat, having been taken in England, Australia, and Japan, it is also 

 pretty general in its feeding, accommodating itself readily to the conditions of the locality. 

 The caterpillar known by the name of the boll-worm in the Southern States, from the vast 

 amount of injury done by it in eating into the cotton-boll, is known in the Western States 

 as the corn -worm, but has been found also in other countries to be very destructive in the 

 field to green peas and pumpkins, and in the garden to tomatoes and the gladiolus. If it 

 should become permanent amongst us and abundant, it will be no small addition to the 

 band of enemies which our cultivators of the soil have already to contend with. The late 

 B. D. Walsh, M.A., the much-lamented State Entomologist of Illinois, writing of it in 

 1869, says, "It attacks corn in the ear, at first feeding on the silk, but afterwards devouring 

 the kernels at the terminal end, being securely sheltered the while within the husks. 

 We have seen whole fields of corn nearly ruined in this way in the State of Kentucky, 

 but nowhere have we known it to be so very destructive as in Southern Illinois." Again 

 he says, " In 1860, the year of the great drought in Kansas, the corn crop in that State 

 was almost entirely ruined by the corn-worm. According to the Prairie Farmer of Jan. 

 31st, 1861, one county there, which raised 436,000 bushels of corn in 1859, only produced 

 5,000 bushels of poor wormy stuff in 1860 ; and this, we are told, was a fair sample of 

 most of the counties of Kansas." In these extracts we have evidence of its powers of 

 ■devastation when abundant. In these States it is double -brooded ; whether it is so here 

 or not does not yet appear certain, but that it is double-brooded in New J ersey has been most 

 conclusively proven by the careful investigations of Mrs. Mary Treat, of Vineland, N. J. 

 It was quite plenty here in the early part of September, feeding in the daytime on the 

 flowers of the golden-rod and in the gardens. Several of the Agrotis family were flying 

 -at the same time, which are known to be but single-brooded. The probabilities are that 

 it may be the same here also. A night-flyer properly, or in the dusk of the evening, it 

 seemed to have been tempted from its hiding-place by that peculiar dull, smoky weather 

 we had so much of during the first three weeks of September, when even the Sphingidaa 

 forgot their usual caution and came forth boldly to feed at mid-day, having taken a tomato- 

 sphinx (M. Quinquemaculata j at 2 o'clock in the afternoon of the 14th, feeding on petunias, 

 whilst the white-lined sphinx ( Deilephila lineata ), which, by the way, was most unusually 

 abundant, could be seen by the half-dozen among the flowers at any time of the day. The 

 Heliothis moth is a pale clay yellow on the front wings, but quite variable in depth of shad- 

 ing, with olivaceous markings and a conspicuous dark spot near the middle. The hind 

 wings are paler, with a dark brownish band on the outer margin. Being about If inches 

 in expanse of wing, it was quite a conspicuous object while feeding, more especially as it 

 seldom rested, but kept its wings amoving the while. The caterpillar is said to vary in 

 colour from a pale green to a dark brown, but the ornamentation is constant, which is 

 longitudinal light and dark lines, and black spots from which rise a few soft hairs. 



FOOD HABITS OF THE LONGICORNS. 



By E. B. Caulfield, Montreal, P.Q. 



In June, 1873, while collecting in a small swamp on Montreal Mountain, I caught a 

 specimen of Pogonocherus mixtus (Hald.) on my coat-sleeve, and as the insect was new to 



