THE PITCH-DROP WORM. 731 



63. ^geria pinoruni Behrens, MS. 



" Mr. Behrens sends me a colored drawing and description of an 

 insect to which he gives the above name. It comes from Monterey, in 

 Finus insignis, from which larvse have been obtained. From these 

 larvse he bred one specimen from which the drawing was made. He 

 sajs the larva lives under the bark of the tree, feeding on the inner 

 bark and perhaps outer wood. From the wound made by the larva 

 there is quite a flow of resin, the pupa being formed in the inner flakes 

 of this resin. By detaching such flakes of resin, 5 or 6 inches long, 

 about as wide, and more than an inch in thickness, pupse and larvae 

 have been discovered nicely ensconced in rounded holes next to the 

 bark. 



" The wings are vitreous with golden scales scattered over the sur. 

 face, the veins dark 5 legs dark and golden ; body steel blue with six 

 golden bands, the last the terminal tuft. 



" Mr. Behrens did not state whether the specimen was a male or a 

 female, but I think from the drawing it was a male." (G. H. French in 

 Can. Ent, xxi, 163, Sept., 1889.) 



64. The pitch- drop worm. 

 Nephopteryx {PinipesHs) zimmermanni Grote. 

 Order Lepidoptera; family Pykalid^. 



In June and July wounding the trunk of the red and white pine 

 below the insertion of the branches, the presence of the larva being 

 detected by the exuding pitch ; the larva livid or blackish green, eat- 

 ing on the inner side of the bark and making furrows in the wood ; in 

 July spinning a papery cocoon, the moth appearing from ten to four- 

 teen days afterwards. 



Mr. A. E. Grote has called attention in the Canadian Entomologist 

 (vol. ix, p. 161) to this pest of the red pine (Pimis resinosa) and white 

 pine {Pinus strobns). The caterpillar occurs in the months of June and 

 July, when the trees affected show by the exuding pitch that they are 

 suffering from the attacks of this insect. The wound occurs on the 

 main stem below the insertion of the branch. The worm in July 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 

 moth appears in ten to fourteen days after the cocoon is spun. 



Mr. Grote adds that the worm usually infests the main stem at the 

 insertion of the branches ; and from the fact that the pitch of the trees 

 protects the caterpillars no wash would injure the insect; hence exter- 

 mination with the knife is the only remedy. 



In vol. X of the same journal (p. 20) Mr. C. D. Zimmerman, the origi- 

 nal discoverer of this pest, gives some further account of it. He writes 



