In January, 1895, I received from a fruit grower at Industry, Pa., several plum-twigs which were badly infested with what was to me a new pest. Two of these twigs are shown, natural size, on the accompanying plate. It will be seen that a ring of small, sub-spherical excrescences encircles the base of each bud and also the bases of two short shoots. The correspondent wrote that he had 400 trees badly infested, and a majority of the plum trees in his neighborhood were affected. The Damsons seem especially subject to attack, but all varieties suffer more or less.

The excrescences were then of a dark brown colour, with a slight reddish tinge. Usually a slit-like opening could be distinguished on the surface. Upon carefully cutting through one of the excrescences, I was surprised to find a cavity in the interior that was packed nearly full of very minute whitish creatures, which proved to be four-legged mites or Phytoptids. Thus, these excrescences were the galls formed by the mites, and in which they were then hibernating. There were hundreds of the mites in each gall and all of them in a dormant condition. Thus, each twig was harbouring thousands of the little creatures. The fleshy portion of the galls, between the cavity and the onter skin, is of a dark magenta colour. The galls vary in size, some of the larger ones containing two or three cavities.

The Colymbetini, which follow the Hydroporini in Dr. Leconte's scheme, are immediately distinguished therefrom by the distinctly five-jointed tarsi, and also, as a rule, by the much greater size. The males have the anterior, or middle tarsi, variously modified, but not forming regularly rounded disks as in the following group.

We take great pleasure in presenting this month a likeness of Prof. Saunders, who must be well-known, if not presonally, certainly by reputation, to every reader of the Canadian Entomologist. He was one of the founders of the Entomological Society of Ontario in 1863, and became its President in 1875, which position he held continuously till he was appointed Director of the Experimental Farms of the Dominion in 1886. From 1874 to 1886 he was the General Editor of this Magazine, and conducted it with singular ability and success.

Mr. A1ex. D. MacGillivray has sent me some Psychodidæ from Ithaca, N.Y., for names.

Psychoda Slossonœ, Will.

One male (June). The wings are clothed with blackish hair, and with two broad irregular white bands. The fringe on the posterior margin is blackish (in superba whitish); the abdomen clothed with white hairs (in superba with black); the legs are paler and with more white hair than in superba; and the white hair on head and thorax is not as long nor as dense asin P. superba. A female (Aug.) which is larger and more thickly clothed with white hair is, perhaps, the same as Williston mentions, and is, I think, the female of this species.

At 5,000 feet altitude, in the vicinity of Laggan, Nemeophila petrosaflies during July. This is one of our commoner moths, and appears to be the only bombycid of common occurrence in the district. Although occasionally round near timber 1ine, it is rare at that elevation. Under natural conditions only one flight occurs in the season, and larvæ from eggs of that flight hibernate principally at an early stage. In the house, with a warmer night temperature, larvæ resultant from the July flight will go to imago late in October instead of hibernating. Inthe wild environment, a second flight is prevented by the low night temperature. Petrosa frequents moist banks, ditches, margins of old roads, and open ground well supplied with plants. A great majority of the individuals seen in flight are males, the disparity in relative number of males and females observed resulting from the quieter disposition of the females. The males are very restless and readily take flight, thereby attracting observation.

Prior to the advent of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the year 1883, this district was entirely unsettled, being, in fact, a terra incognita to all except servants of the Hudson Bay Co., officials of the Geological Survey, and Provincial Government surveyors. But it had been devastated to a large extent by forest fires, which occurred at intervals during a period of some fifty or sixty years previously. These fires entirely destroyed the virgin forest (which consisted chiefly of white pine) over large tracts, by killing the trees and leaving them susceptible to the attacks of their insect enemies, and presenting at that date (1883) a desolate appearance, caused by the thickly-standing tall bare trunks and stubs of trees, among which had sprung up a thick growth of saplings of white birch, poplar, etc.

The beetles enumerated below were all taken within a circle of five miles' radius from Massett, on the Northern Shore of Graham Island—the most northerly of the Queen Charlotte group. This area, though small, is considerably diversified, and favourable to coleopterous life. The island here is flat, and covered with a forest of spruce and hemlock, with a sprinkling of alder. The soil is sandy, and for the most part dry. The coastline includes a stretch of level sand reached only by the highest tides, and strewn with driftwood; a protected pebbly beach and a tract of rough stones, also covered by the high tides. The sandy beach I find most productive, many even inland insects appearing to fall on the loose sand, and, being unable to rise, crawl for shelter under the driftwood. Hills and fresh-water streams (of any size) are absent, and I quite expect these situations, which occur in other parts of the island, to yield, when examined, several additional species.

Oneida luniferella, n. sp.—Tongue blackish with some light gray scales; labial palpi and face light gray; antennæ blackish gray; antennal protection light gray at base, becoming blackish gray towards summit; thorax gray, patagia lighter, becoming nearly white posteriorly; abdomen gray with black scales intermixed, somewhat washed with fuscous, and often stained with yellowish. Fore wings light gray at base to raised scale ridge immediately before the first cross-line; this line is white, rounded from costa to median vein, and thence to inner margin, edged on both sides with black and preceded by a scale ridge which is reddish brown in colour; middle field light gray, glistering, slightly powdered with blackish scales, this colour reaching to outer margin posterior to vein 5; near middle of field and between vein 1 and median vein a raised scale tuft, blackish.

The Cucujidæ constitute a small family of beetles of depressed, often elongate form, the antennæ lengthened in many species, giving them a somewhat characteristic appearance, which, while recalling the Cerambycidæ, renders them, nevertheless, easily recognized. They may be technically distinguished from the allied Clavicorn families by the long elytra, the five-jointed tarsi (the hind ones sometimes only four-jointed in the males), the rounded or oval anterior coxæ, the middle ones with externally open cavities and the posterior separate. The ventral segments are sub-equal in length. The larvæ, so far as known, are flattened grubs, with distinct antennæ and several ocelli; the terminal segments often with hooks or tubercles.

In Vol. XXV., p. 253, I gave some account of the dimorphism of P. Bairdii, mainly from the observations and experiments of Mr. David Bruce. From what he had seen at Glenwood Springs, Coloradom he had satisfied himself that not only Bairdii and Oregonia were one species, but that P. Hollandii, Edw., formed part of the same. Though the two first named differ in facies more decidedly that do Turnus and Rutulus, and Rutulus and either Eurymedon or Daunus. Hollandii looks on the upper side like Bairdii, but beneath, while in general like Bairdii, the yellow spots are larger, making the surface much gayer.

I have just received from Mr. James Fletcher a small bottle of scales found on plum at Queenston, Ontario. He writes concerning them: “Dead scales picked from a plum tree in the Niagara district, where it was very abundant on plums and much rarer on peach trees growing amongst the plums”

Directiy I saw these scales, they struck me as something unusual, and yet I rather expected they would prove to be some form of L. persicœ. Unfortunately they were full of the mycelium of a fungus (doubtless Cordyceps), as well as in some cases containing a Chalcidid parasite, so that their specific characters were very hard to make out. The fungus, which must be a very important check to their increase, was not noticed on examination with a lens; but on boiling the sacles in liquor potassæ, they stained the liquor brown, and a microscopic examination showed the fungus quite plainly. Of course, from mere mycelium no determination could be made. I saw in one case what looked like germinating spores, but perhaps in this I was mistaken.

Head broad, with an angle on each side below the eyes, margins parallel from base to apex, which is largely produced in a spoon-shape; base of the head nearly straight; ocelli a trifle nearer the eyes than to each other, on a line above the centre of the eyes I head, at inner edge of each eye, furnished with a compressed, dentiform tubercle projecting directly forward; head inflexed below the eyes. Prothorax convex, elevated some above lateral angles, at summit, on each side armed with a short, stout (truncated?) horn, the sides of which are continuous with those of the prothorax, projecting upward, and parallel; densely punctured; basal margin projecting in a transverse carina; furnished with a percurrent median carina; posterior process gradually narrowed to the apex, which is briefly recurved in a compressed tooth or lobule; the base almost completely covering the scutellum; dorsum of posterior process furnished with two rounded tubercles, the first located at the base of the anterior convexity, the second midway between it and the apex. Tegmina coriaceous, narrow, punctured, opaque, veins irregular and numerous; barely passing abdomen, far surpassing the apex of the posterior prothoracic process; corium with the venation very irregular towards apex, there being numerous discoidal and terminal areas varying greatly in size, and three basal areas; clavus attenuated gradually to apex; wings with four apical areas, the second minute, triangular. Front tibiæ moderately dilated, with a row of fine spines along the edges.

These conspicuous spherical galls occur somewhat rarely at Ottawa upon the stems of Solidago rugosa, and have been found to yield only the handsome fly with produces them, and its parasite Eurytoma gigantea, Walsh. The 24th May last I spent at Casselman, about thirty miles southward from Ottawa, with Mr.Fletcher, and we found the galls abundant upon Solidago serotina, upon the banks of the South Nation.

The season of 1894 was, in this loaclity, of matter an unusual character. Spring appeared with March, lasting up to the 25th, when we had a series of light snow-storms and hard frosts, which continued to the 7th April. Then we had weeks of the most charming, moderate and enjoyable weather. After the middle of May we had frequent thunder-showers; the 28th was cold and snowy, with a killing frost at night. It remained cold to the 7th of June, when it changed to warm weather, and for the rest of June and throughout July we had an almost unbroken time of excessive heat. August was dry as well as hot, and its effects were seen in the coloured leaves of trees and bushes, and much more so in weeds and grasses. In the early part of September rain set in, which freshened vegetation greatly, but frosts followed at the end of the month.

Oiketicus Townsendi. Cockerell.

1893—Dyar, Ent. News, IV., 321 note. (No name.)

1894—Dyar, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., VIII., 205 (fig. of larvel setœ).

1895—Cockerell, Bull. 15, New Mex. Agr. Ex. Sta., pl. fig. 7, 7a.

1895—Cockerell, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., (6) XV., 208.