1916 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 63 



Character of Injury. 



As is the case with many associated species in Europe, the damage that 

 impressifrons causes is two-fold: First, it nibbles the unfolding buds and then 

 it attacks the foliage, preferring the margins of the leaves. The beetles, while 

 small in size, are voracious eaters, and the extent of their injury is, broadly 

 speaking, in proportion to their abundance. Many of tliem confined to a relatively 

 small feeding area may cause much harm. The numbers of the insect that one 

 may sometimes observe would suggest at once that they must be doing appreciable 

 damage. However, it should be recorded that generally the extent of injury seems 

 to bo greatly disproportionate to the numbers of the creatures. The most con- 

 spicuous example of their destructive capacity was observed in 1912 in a large 

 block of willows in a nursery plantation. This was largely composed of the 

 goat willow [Salix caprea) grafted to such sorts as New American, Eosemary 

 and Kilmarnock. The latter variety particularly suffered severely as a great many 

 of the insects attacked the opening buds, so that a goodly percentage of them 

 were killed while those partially injured produced imperfect clusters of leaves. 

 The initial injuries were later aggravated by the feeding of the beetles on the 

 margins of the leaves. The effect of this latter attack is to cause the leaves to 

 have an uneven outline, and in instances of extreme injury to present a ragged 

 appearance. So abundant has the insect become in the certain nurseries that 

 the owners have found it necessary to resort to spraying in order to protect their 

 willow plantings. So far we have observed no injuries by the beetle to buds of 

 poplar, birch, apple or pear, and while feeding to an important extent has not been 

 detected on these trees, an examination of them during June will seldom fail to 

 find tlie work of the insect on the margins of the leaves. At present impressifrons 

 derives it importance as a pest from its destructive work in nurseries. In some 

 plantings where it has become established it is very numerous and will hardly tail 

 to attract the attention of an ordinary observer. There is no other species of 

 snout-beetle that, during its active period, so frequently brings itself to your 

 notice. It is not an uncommon experience to carry the beetles on one's clothes 

 into the home or to observe them on the window screens of buildings. The fore- 

 man of one well-known nursery has informed us that aside from the damage 

 sustained the beetles have become so abundant in plantings of poplar, birch and 

 willow that they are a source of great annoyance to laborers by flying in their 

 faces. The abundance of the insect is indicated by the following counts : From 

 a sample of earth about osier willow two feet square and to the depth of the 

 spade, ninety-two larvae were collected. From three spadefuls of earth taken near 

 the l)ase of different kinds of nursery trees the following numbers of larvje res- 

 pectively were found: Carolina poplar, 37 specimens; Lombardy poplar, 12 speci- 

 mens: silver-leaf poplar, 12 specimens: birch, 25 specimens: willow, 19 specimens; 

 American mountain-ash, 17 specimens; European mountain-asli, 1 specimen: apple, 

 old tree in sod, 1 specimen. A similar quantity of earth, three spadefuls, taken 

 about five-year-old fruit trees in a mixed planting yielded the following numbers 

 of insects respectively: apple, 65 specimens; pear, 51 specimens; peach, 35 speci- 

 mens, and plum 62 specimens. One corner of this orchard was only a little 

 removed from a row of osier willow. The fact that impressifrons is apparently 

 of little significance abroad certainly does not warrant the conclusion that it will 

 prove of no importance in this country. The conditions described justify the 

 inference that the species is already more abundant and injurious here than in 

 Europe or more attention would surelv have been devoted to it there. 



