NOTES OF OBSERVATIONS 
OF 
INJURIOUS INSECTS. 
REPORT, 1877. 
The request, made in tlie spring of the present year, for observa¬ 
tions relative to insect injuries to the food crops, has been responded 
to far more cordially than could have been expected. Observers, both 
scientific and practical, have come forward to give the benefit of their 
experience, and the thanks due for their kind co-operation are offered 
both to those whose names are appended to their observations and 
also to the contributors of shorter notes. In the case of the Colias 
entries a few are taken by kind permission from those of the pheno¬ 
logies! observers of the Meteorological Society. 
Whether much or little, those who will give the benefit of then- 
knowledge in diminishing the great yearly loss from insect waste are 
doing good service to the country; and this first year’s return shows how 
much may be gained by continuing the observations for the time which 
would be requisite to form fairly complete notes of treatment found 
successful generally, with the modifications required by each year’s 
peculiar weather, or by soils and climates varying as widely as the 
range from Banff to South Devon. 
The returns sent in are carefully preserved for reference as to 
details: for present use they give the following notes of remedies 
found successful in various districts; of presence or absence of 
injurious insects (information equally serviceable in either case, when 
accompanied by that of coincident circumstances); and more detailed 
observations of the great insect feature of the year—the extraordinary 
outburst of Colias Edusa, which, though little important as a “farm 
pest,” was selected for observation, from its intermittent appearances 
possibly throwing light on the cause of other occasional visitations of 
a more serious nature, as those of the Atlialia spinarum (Black Jack), 
