C|e Canadian ^ntomolopt. 



VOL. IX. LONDON, ONT., SEPTEMBER, 1877. No. 9 



A NEW LEPIDOPTEROUS INSECT INJURIOUS TO 



VEGETATION. 



BY A. R. GROTE, 



Director of the Museum, Buffalo Society Natural Sciences. 



(Read before the Am. A.sso. Adv. Sci., August 30, 1877.) 



In the months of June and July the Red Pine (Pinus resinosa) and 

 and the White Pine (Pinus strobus) show by the exuding pitch that they 

 are suffering from the attacks of an insect. The wounds occur on the 

 main stem below the insertion of the branch. On cutting into the bark 

 the injury is found to be caused by a small larva, which, when full grown, 

 measures i6 to iS millimetres. The head is shining chestnut brown with 

 black mandibles. The body is livid or blackish green, naked, with series 

 of black dots, each dot giving rise to a single, rather stout, bristle. The 

 prothoracic shield is blackish. The larva has three pair of thoracic or 

 true jointed feet, and four abdominal or false feet, besides anal claspers. 

 This larva, eating on the inner side of the bark, and making furrows in 

 the wood, causes the bleeding which, when the depletion is excessive or 

 continuous, and especially in the case of yonng trees, has proved fatal. 



In July the worm spins a whitish, thin, papery cocoon in the mass 

 of exuding pitch, which seems to act as a protection to both the larva and 

 the chrysalis. The chrysalis contained in the cocoon is cylindrical, 

 smooth, narrow, blackish-brown, about i6 miUimeters in length. The 

 head is pointed, there being a pronounced clypeal protuberance ; the 

 segments are unarmed ; the anal plate is provided with a row of four 

 spines, and two others, more slender, on either side of the mesial line, 

 below the first. It gives the moth in ten to fourteen days. The perfect 



