^32 FIFTH REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



had been cut off in consequence of their widespread destruction by in- 

 sects. Mr. Alexander informed us that the spruce trees were, in his 

 opinion, killed by small caterpillars which have been at work for five 

 years, but which were most destructive in 1879. These caterpillars he 

 described as being the young of a small brown moth which laid its 

 eggs in autumn; the caterpillars hatching from them were not inch- 

 worms, but when fully grown the body tapered towards both ends, and 

 were about three-quarters of an inch long, and were most destructive 

 June 20, when they are seen among the buds at the ends of the 

 branches, where they draw the leaves together, eating the buds and 

 not the leaves. He had also seen borers in the trees, but he thought 

 the death of the tree should be attributed to the bud- worms rather 

 than to the borers. As will be seen further on, a number of caterpil- 

 lars were found by us late this summer feeding upon the leaves of the 

 spruce and fir, but the worm observed by Mr. Alexander was probably 

 one of the leaf-rolling caterpillars, a species of the family Tortricidce. 

 A number of spruces and firs with their leaves still on but of a bright 

 red, were observed scattered along the roadside; but no signs of leaf- 

 worms or borers were observed in such trees, although the dead, leaf- 

 less trees were infested with bark-borers, 



I was informed by the late C. J. Noyes, esq., of Brunswick, who was 

 a summer resident at Merepoint, that in June and the first week in July, 

 1878, the spruces and firs were attacked by great numbers of " little 

 measuring worms, like the currant worm in shape," which eat the buds 

 at the ends of the branches ; since 1878 they had mostly disappeared, 

 and in the summer of 1881 he had noticed only four or five. 



From Harpswell Neck we traced dead spruces and firs around to West 

 Bath, where extensive forests had been destroyed and numbers of dead 

 hemlocks were observed, while the wood was attacked and the bark 

 undermined and perforated by Buprestid borers, bark-borers, and the 

 pine-weevil {Pissodes strobi). We have nowhere seen hemlock trees, 

 which are more exempt than any other coniferous trees from the attacks 

 of insects, so much infested. 



The death and destruction of spruce forests were reported to us at 

 Eockland, Me., and at Calais, Me., the destruction having been observed 

 by Mr. Sewall at the latter town in 1879. From these facts there is 

 good reason to suppose that perhaps a third of the spruce and fir for- 

 ests from near Portland to Calais have been destroyed by insects, most 

 of the work of destruction having been accomplished four or five years 

 ago, during 1878-'79. 



Similar damage has been done at points ten or twelve miles from the 

 sea and in the interior of the State. The injury was especially noticed 

 in North Topsham, near the Bowdoinham line. According to the state- 

 ments of Mr. Willis, the agent of the Feldspar works in North Tops- 

 ham, forwarded by Dr. C. A. Packard, of Bath, Me., the spruces were 

 in 1879 attacked by borers and also by small caterpillars, "not measur- 



