SPKUCE BUD-WORMS. 845 



28. The reddish-yellow spruce-bud worm. 

 Steganoptycha ratzeburgiana Sax. 



A caterpillar not before observed by us was found to be very injurious 

 to the white spruce, and in a less degree to the black spruce on Squirrel 

 Island, Booth Bay Harbor, Maine. July 11 the white spruce shoots par- 

 ticularly were found to have been, in many cases, stripped bare of their 

 leaves, especially the terminal fresh shoots. The shoots had been 

 stripped either wholly or only on one side, some of the young trees being 

 badly injured, and as they were used as ornamental shrubs around the 

 summer cottages on that island, their beauty was seriously marred. 

 They also affected the white-spruce trees growing wild among the rocks 

 on the shore, while but a few black spruces had been injured. The 

 shoots and branches were fairly alive with the moths, which, on being 

 disturbed would rise up in great numbers and then settle down upon 

 the leaves. Upon sending a specimen to Prof. C. H. Fernald, of the 

 Maine State College, who is the leading authority on the Tortricidw, a 

 family of leaf-rolling moths, he kindly informs me that it is a new dep- 

 redator, only recently detected in this country. His letter to me reads 

 as follows : 



Maine State College, 

 Department of Natural History, 



Orono, Me., Octoier 4, 1884. 



My Dear Professor : Your carcf and the insect have come to hand. I have taken 

 this insect at Mount Desert in the latter part of Jnly, 1882, in abundance around 

 spruces in which the terminal twigs were destroyed. This was presumptive — though 

 not positive — evidence that they were the ones that caused the destruction of the twigs. 

 I found them again this summer, early in July, on Islesborough, around spruces in the 

 same way as described above. I have also received the insect for determination from 

 New Hampshire. This, I believe, is the entire history of the insect in this country, 

 for it has never been sent to me except as above, and it is not in any of the collections 

 of the country to my knowledge. 



I at ouce determined it to be a Steganoptycha, and as it agreed with nothing in my 

 American collection, I turned to the foreign species and found that it was near, if not 

 identical with,the European -S.ra<2e6wr(/iajtffi Sax. I have three examples from Germany 

 which vary somewhat, as do the specimens of this country. I have now given them 

 a critical examination and comparison, and believe them to be identical. I made a 

 microscopical examination of the genitalia of the males, and find th<^m alike. So far as 

 any studies which can be made on the imagos go they would be regarded as identical. 



If you found the larvae and made any studies on them, I would be glad to have you 

 compare them with what the following authors say, and let me know whether they agree 

 or whether the early stages differ. See the following works, which I think comprise 

 the entire history of the literature of the subject : Ratzeburg, Forest Insects, Vol. I, 

 p. 227, Plate 12 ; Fig. 3, Imago ; 3 L., larva ; and Plate 13, Figs. 3 and 4, twigs destroyed 

 by the larvie : Zeller, Isis (not in my library), 1846, 242 : Herrich-Schaeffer, Schmett- 

 erlinge von Europa, Vol. V, p. 208 : Heinemann, Wickler, p. 212, who states that the 

 larvae live in spring in the young shoots of Pinus abies. Duponchel describes it on 

 page 568, and gives a fair figure on Plate 266 under the name tenerana, mistaking it 

 for Hiibner's tenerana, which belongs to another genus. Stainton's Manual, Vol. 2, p. 



