2] 8 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. [76] 



wings, belonging to the family of Tineidce, wliich comprises the 



smallest forms of the LejndojDtera. It was described thirty-five years 



ago by Dr. Fitch, in his First Report on the Noxious Insects of New York, 



under the name of Ornix acerifoliella, where it is recorded as having 



caused so serious an affection of the maples in the eastern section of 



New York, in the year 1850, as to make it a common subject of 



remark. The forest maples were alone affected by it; those isolated 



in fields and about dwellings entirely escaped. It had been observed 



for several years (perhaps ten) annually, with the return of the month 



of May, in numbers in the forests, but at the time of writing (1854) 



it had nearly disappeared ; for two years past not one had been seen, 



and even its pupae could not be found on searching among the fallen 



trees. 



Its Subsequent History. 



No record is found of later injuries from it in the State of New 

 York. In 1859 Dr. Fitch received examples of the insect with 

 inquiries of its habits, from North Clarendon, Vt., as appears from a 

 communication made by him to the Country Gentleman of October 

 sixth of that year. Its ravages at and in the vicinity of Pittsford, 

 Vt., given on page 216, were in the year 1874. Di-. Packard's only 

 acquaintance with the insect seems to be {loc. cit.) in maple leaves, 

 and cases illustrating its work received from Vermont — at what time 

 is not stated. Its occurrence in the State of Illinois was observed by 

 Miss Emily A. Smith, on forest maples, during the month of August 

 and thereafter increasingly until the fall of the leaves in autumn. 



Its Destructiveness in Canada. 



Mr. James Fletcher, Entomologist of the Department of Agriculture 

 of Canada, has given an account of an extraordinary occurrence of this 

 insect in a maple wood adjoining the grounds of the Government House 

 at Ottawa, in September of 1885. The maple trees, for a space of per- 

 haps four acres, had the foliage almost entirely consumed, and the flat, 

 disc-like cases of the larvse were carpeting the ground, and were also 

 in great numbers on the trunks of the trees. Some beech trees grow- 

 ing among the maples had also been attacked after the leaves of the 

 maple had been devoured. The attack was so severe in the skeletoniz- 

 ing of the leaves that the woods presented a cream-colored hue instead 

 of their usual green. 



A similar visitation had been observed by the Rev. T. W. Fyles, of 

 South Quebec, in Missisquoi county, in the year 1881, particularly in 

 maple groves in the village of Sweetsburgh, Quebec. The foliage was 

 so skeletonized that it presented a brown and scorched appearance, as 

 if a hot blast had passed over the woodland. Myriads of the larvae 



