id="pgepubid00025">THE CABBAGE LEAF MINER.

Plutella cruciferarum (Zell.)

The cabbage leaf miner is not a native of this country, but was imported from Europe.

The perfect moth, Fig. 25, f, with the wings expanded (h, with the wings closed, g, a dark variety), measures three-quarters of an inch. The fore wings are ashy gray, and on the hinder margin is a white or yellowish white stripe having three points extending into the gray, thus forming, when the wings are closed, three diamond-shaped white spots. Generally there is a dark brown stripe between the white and the gray. There are also black dots scattered about on the anterior part of these wings.

The hind wings are leaden brown, and the under side of all the wings is leaden brown, glossy, and without any dots.

The antennæ are whitish with dark rings, and the abdomen white. There are two broods of this insect in this region, the moths of the first appearing in May, and those of the second in August. They hibernate in the pupa stage.

The caterpillars, Fig. 25, a (b, the top and c, the side of a segment), appear in June or July and September; they are small and cylindrical, tapering at both ends, pale green, and about one-fourth of an inch long. The head has a yellowish tinge, and there are several dark stiff hairs scattered over the body.

When ready to transform, this caterpillar spins a delicate gauze-like cocoon, Fig. 25, e, made of white, silken threads, on the under side of a cabbage leaf. The pupa, Fig. 25, d, and i, the end of a pupa, is commonly white, sometimes shaded with reddish brown, and can be distinctly seen through the silken case.

The first brood is more injurious than the second, as it feeds on the young cabbage leaves before the head is formed, and this must surely stunt the growth and make weak, sickly plants; while the second brood feeds only on the outside leaves. The caterpillars are very active, wriggling violently when disturbed, and falling by a white silken thread.

Hot dry weather is favorable to them and enables them to multiply rapidly. Advantage has been taken of this fact, and spraying the plants thoroughly with water is strongly recommended. Prof. Riley states that the insects are very readily destroyed by pyrethrum. There are two species of spiders and a species of ichneumon fly that destroy them.

THE GARTERED PLUME MOTH.

Oxyptilus periscelidactylus (Fitch.)

The caterpillars of this species draw together the young grape leaves, Fig. 26, a, in the spring, with fine silken threads, and feed on the inside, thus doing much damage in proportion to their size. These caterpillars, Fig. 26, a, and e, a segment greatly enlarged, are full grown in about two weeks, when they are about one-fourth of an inch long, pale green with whitish hairs arising from a transverse row of warts on each segment.

Early in June they transform to pupæ, Fig. 26, b, which are pale green at first and change to dark brown. The surface is rough and the head is cut off obliquely, while on the upper side near the middle are two sharp pointed horns, Fig. 26, c. They remain in this stage from a week to ten days, when the moths emerge.

The moths, Fig. 26, d, belong to the family commonly known as plume moths or feather wings (Pterophoridæ), from having their wings divided into feather-like lobes. When the wings are expanded they measure about seven-tenths of an inch across. They are yellowish brown with a metallic luster, and have several dull whitish streaks and spots. The fore wings are split down the middle about half way to their base, the posterior half having a notch in the outer margin. The body is somewhat darker than the wings.

It is not known positively in what stage the winter is passed, but it is supposed to be the perfect, or imago stage. The unnatural grouping and spinning of the leaves together leads to their detection, and they can be easily destroyed by hand picking and then crushing or burning them.

THE BREEDS OF DOGS.

The dog exhibitions that have annually taken place for the last eight years at Paris and in the principal cities of France have shown how numerous and varied the breeds of dogs now are. It is estimated that there are at present, in Europe, about a hundred very distinct and very fine breeds (that is to say, such as reproduce their kind with constant characters), without counting a host of sub-breeds or varieties that a number of breeders are trying to fix.

Most of the breeds of dogs, especially those of modern creation, are the work of man, and have been obtained by intercrossing older breeds and discarding all the animals that departed from the type sought. But many of these breeds are also the result of accident, or rather of modifications of certain parts of the organism—of a sort of rachitic or teratological degeneration which has become hereditary and has been due to domestication; for it is proved that the dog is the most anciently domesticated animal, and that its submission to man dates back to more than five thousand years. Such is the origin of the breeds of terriers, bulldogs, and all of the small house dogs.

Man has often, designedly or undesignedly, aided in the production of breeds of this last category by submitting the dog to a regimen contrary to nature, or setting to work to reproduce an animal born monstrous, either for curiosity or for interest. As well known, the accidental characters and the spontaneous modifications which work no injury to the essential functions of life became easily hereditary, and the same is the case with certain artificial modifications pursued for a long series of generations.

It was the opinion of Buffon that the breeds of dogs, which were already numerous in his time, were all derived from a single type, which, according to him, was the shepherd's dog. Other scientists have insisted that the dog descended from the wolf, and others from the jackal. At the present time, it is rightly admitted that several species of wild dogs have concurred in the formation of the different breeds of dogs as we now have them.

In the lacustrine habitations of the stone age in Sweden, and in the kjoekkenmoedding (kitchen remains) of Denmark, of the same epoch, we find the remains of a dog, which, according to Rutymeyer, belongs to a breed which is constant up to its least details, and which is of a light and elegant conformation, of medium size, with a spacious and rounded cranium and a short, blunt muzzle, and a medium sized jaw, the teeth of which form a regular series.

This dog, which has been named by geologists Canis palustris, fully resembles in size, slenderness of the limbs, and weakness of the muscular insertions, the spaniel, the brach hound, or the griffon.

This dog of the stone age is entirely distinct from the wolf and jackal, of which some regard the domestic dog as a descendant, and as it has appeared in Denmark as well as in Sweden, there is no doubt that this species, peculiar to Europe, was subjugated by man and used by him, in the first place, for hunting, and later on for guarding houses and cattle. Later still, in the age of metals, we observe the appearance, both in Denmark and Sweden, of larger and stronger breeds of dogs, having in their jaws the character of mastiffs, and probably introduced by the first emigrants from Asia.

There are, moreover, historic proofs that the dogs of the strongest breeds are indigenous to Asia, where we still find the dog of Thibet, the most colossal of all; in fact, in Pliny we read the following narrative: Alexander the Great received from a king of Asia a