760 FIFTH REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION 



their work that the Lophyrus was rare the next summer (1869). If this wholesale 

 destruction of the larva? had not occurred, there would have been acres of young 

 pines destroyed. 



I did not meet with the red crossbill until January, when I met a flock at Sand- 

 wich ; in February I met a flock here (Eastham). Neither of these birds are com- 

 mon visitors to the Cape. I have not known of any visiting us the past winter. I 

 never met with one until 1868, but residents of Eastham informed me that the white- 

 winged species was with them in the fall of 1867. An old lady in East Falmouth 

 informed me that a number of years ago they visited her orchard and damaged her 

 apples by cutting them off to get the seeds. 



82. The lyda saw-fly. 



Infesting the Austrian pine, tying the needles together with a silken web filled 

 with castings, forming a mass about 6 inches in diameter, with the needles of the 

 pine scattered through the mass, the leaves being separated by the false-caterpillars 

 from the branch. 



We have noticed this false- caterpillar ou but a single occasion, and 

 then failed to rear the worms to the winged state. The following ac- 

 count is taken from our article entitled "Injurious Insects, New and 

 Little Known," in the Eeport of the Massachusetts Board of Agricult- 

 ure for 1870: 



Late in September of 1869, Dr. William Mack, of Salem, Mass., brought into the 

 museum of the Peabody Academy of Science some singular false-caterpillars which 

 had assembled on a single branch of an Austrian pine, on his place, and had tied the 

 needles together with a fine silken web filled with castings, forming a mass of cast- 

 ings about 6 inches in diameter, with the needles of the pine among them, the 

 leaves being separated by the larvae from the brauch. 



The larva is that of a species of Lyda, and while doing little injury to the tree, so 

 far as known, yet merits a short description. Dr. Ratzburg figures a similar species 



in his work on forest insects, and states that the Lyda 

 campesins of Europe, to which our species seems closely 

 allied, is sporadic in its attacks on the pine and never 

 proves very destructive. 



The larva. — The body is cylindrical, a little flattened, 

 and thickest in the middle, with small thoi-acic slen- 

 der legs, which are not used much in walking, the 

 larva wriggling along when placed on a smooth surface. 

 The bead is pale reddish with a black spot between the 

 antennse ; the prothorax is black above and the body 

 reddish olive-green, with a rather broad purplish line 

 along the middle of the back. There are no abdominal 

 legs, and the end of the body is somewhat flattened, 

 with a black round spot on each side of the anal| 

 plate ; beneath is a broad transverse incision. Below, 

 and arising from each side, is a long, corneous, three- 

 jointed, slender out-stretched appendage of the size 

 and form of the antennse. The under side of the 

 body is mottled with greenish and reddish as above, 

 with a reddish median line. On the side of the thorax 

 are two rows of dots, and two rows along the middle on the ventral side of the 

 three thoracic wings. 



\^^ 



Fig. 262.— Lyda saw-fly larva on 

 Austrian pine, enlarged. — From 

 Packard. 



